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(3eot0e iEUot'6 

II 

Silas flibarncr 


EDITED 

WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 


UV 

M. A. EATON, B. A. 


EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

BOSTON 

New York Chicago San Francisco 



LIBRARY 0f CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 9 1906 

Copyrleht Entry 
CLASS XXCm No. 
COPY B. 


Copyrighted 

By educational publishing company 


F(ecei’-'3d ; rom 
Office. 





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f V. 


SILAS MARNER 


THE WEAVER' OF RAVELOE 


GEORGE ELIOT 


“A child, more than all other gifts 
That earth can offer to declining man, 

Brings hope with it, and forward looking thoughts.”^ 

— Wordsworth. 


' See the article on “ Weaving ” in the Encyclopcedia Brita^i- 
nica for a full description of the hand-loom and the weaver’s 
work, to which reference is made throughout the story. The 
power-loom, or factory weaving, did not become general in 
England before 1825. 



MARIAN F,VANS CROSS ^(iR. •kOE KLIOT '. 


INTRODUCTION 


LIFE OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

A certain critic has said that “ George Eliot shows man 
what he may be, in terms of what he is.” Born at a time 
when popular thought in England was undergoing a process of 
reconstruction, when men were losing the old landmarks of 
faith, and science was beginning to usurp the place of religion, 
George Eliot’s mission was to insist upon the true dignity ajq^ 
grandeur of man, and the supreme necessity of moral purfty? 

The novel with a purpose had its birth with her. i^When 
religion seemed to fail them, and nature to reveal herself only 
in order that she might demonstrate the absence of God in the 
universe, when the whole nation seemed given heart and soul 
to commercialism, men began to ask themselves the question, 
Is life worth living? and this question George Eliot tries to 
answer by showing the beauty and never dying power of right 
and noble living. 

It might be said as truly of her as of Carlyle that she was a 
Calvinist who had lost her creed, but the intensity and moral 
earnestness which she had imbibed as a child did not leave her 
when her mind threw off the restraints of the old creed; it 
developed rather into a great tenderness for all human suffer- 
ing and a passionate desire to lighten the tragedy of life. 

“ What I look to,” she once said, “ is a time when the im- 
pulse to help our fellows shall be as immediate and as irresist- 
ible as that which I feel to grasp something firm if I am 
falling.” To hasten this time was the purpose for which she 
strove. 

Mary Ann Evans was born in the Midlands of England, 
November 22, 1819. Her early life was passed in the town of 
Chilvers-Coton in Warwickshire, not far from Stratford-on- 
Avon, amid scenes and people very like those described in 
“ Silas Marner.” This was a flat and sufficiently uninteresting 
country to the casual observer, but George Eliot loved and un- 
derstood it, and it forms the scene of most of her novels. 

“ Everywhere,” she writes, “ the cottages and the small chil- 
dren were dirty, for the languid mothers gave their strength to 


5 


6 


INTRODUCTION. 


the loom; pious Dissenting women, perhaps, who took life 
patiently, and thought that salvation depended chiefly on pre- 
destination, and not at all on cleanliness. The gables of Dis- 
senting chapels now made a visible sign of religion and of a 
meeting-place to counter-balance the ale-house even in the 
hamlets. Yet there were the gray steeples, too, and the 
church-yards, with their grassy mounds and venerable head- 
stones, sleeping in the sunlight ; there w'ere broad fields and 
homesteads, and fine old woods covering a rising ground, or 
stretching far by the roadside, allowing only peeps at the park 
and mansion which they shut in from the working-day world. 
In these Midland districts the traveler passed rapidly from one 
phase of English life to another; after looking on a village 
dingy with coal-dust, noisy with the shaking of looms, he 
might skirt a parish all of fields, high hedges, and deep-rutted 
lanes; after the coach had rattled over the pavement of a man- 
ufacturing town, the scene of riots and trades-union meetings, 
it would take him in another ten minutes into a rural region, 
where the neighborhood of the town was only felt in the advan- 
tages of a near market for corn, cheese and hay, and where 
men with a considerable banking account were accustomed to 
say that they never meddled with politics themselves.” 

Robert Evans, her father, had charge of the large estates of 
Sir Francis Newdigate of Arbury Hall, and his daughter re- 
ceived the usual education of a young English girl of her class. 
She went to school at first with her brother Isaac and after- 
ward to various private schools, where she showed great studi- 
ousness and a passionate fondness for books and music. Even 
as a girl she possessed a remarkable power of attraction that 
endeared her to others. She was small of stature and not at all 
beautiful, but her impulsive sympathy and her great charm of 
conversation made her a delightful friend. Indeed, it is said 
that at boarding school the privilege of walking with her and 
hearing her talk was so coveted by the other girls, that the 
place was assigned to them alternately in alphabetical order. 

It was at Coventry, however, that George Eliot’s more seri- 
ous education began. After the death of her mother and her 
brother’s marriage, she removed with her father to that town, 
and here she made the acquaintance of several intellectual and 
widely read people. Under this stimulus she began that ex- 
tensive course of reading which made her one of the most 
highly cultured women of her day. She had masters in Greek 
and Latin, and studied French, German and Italian, and even 
attempted Hebrew by herself. 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


Under the influence of her new friends, too, the doubts 
and questionings of the time, with its great scientific problems, 
took possession of her mind. The reconciliation of the new 
science with the old faith seemed impossible and the philosophy 
of life must be reconstructed anew. 

Her linguistic studies, too, had made her acquainted with 
the rationalistic thought of other countries, and her first 
venture was a translation of Strauss’s “Life of Christ,” from 
the German. 

In 1849, father died and she immediately went abroad, 
where she remained for nearly a year. On her return she 
began to write a series of essay's for the Westminster- 
Revieiv. The scholarly and thoughtful nature of her work 
attracted the attention of the editor, John Chapman, and in 
1850 he invited her to become assistant editor of the 
magazine. 

Accordingly she took up her residence in London and here 
she was brought into contact with a brilliant cirde of literary 
and scientific writers, among whom were two whose influence 
upon her after life was great — Herbert Spencer and George 
Henry Lewes. Her friendship with the latter, a man of 
eminence in the philosophical world, led to their union in 1854. 

George Eliot still continued to contribute essays to the 
Westminster Review^ but she lacked that easy tolerance, that 
power of saying sharp and biting things with an easy grace 
and air of good-natured nonchalance which rob them of their 
sting — qualities essential to the successful essayist. She had 
always in a vague kind of way intended to write a novel, from 
the time when, a child, she had completed for herself one of 
Scott’s novels, which she was obliged to return to its owner be- 
fore it was finished. But this intention had never been 
carried out, although she had once written an introductory 
chapter describing village life in Staffordshire. 

This chapter she happened to read to her husband one 
night while they were in Germany, and he urged her to write 
a story. At last, after various delays, she did write the first 
chapter of the “ Story of the Rev. Amos Barton,” and after 
that there was no further doubt of her ability in her husband’s 
mind, although she herself frequently despaired, and, but for 
his encouragement, would have given up the project. 

When the story was finished it was sent to William Black- 
wood, the famous publisher and he at once declared, contrary 
to the way of editors, “ It is a long time since I have read 
anything so fresh, so humorous, so touching.” 


8 


INTRODUCriON. 


Thus encouraged, the author wrote two more stories, 
“ Janet’s Repentance ” and “ Mr. Giltill’s Love Story,” and 
the three were published in one volume under the title, 
“Scenes of Clerical Life,” and the signature of George Eliot. 

The book became popular at once and was soon followed by 

Adam Bede ” and “ Mill on the Floss.” Meanwhile the 
Leweses had settled at the Priory in St. John’s Wood near 
London, and their house soon became the center of a dis- 
tinguished circle of friends, attracted thither by the charm and 
brilliance of the hostess. Indeed, their Sunday gatherings re- 
sembled the brilliant days of the French Salons. Here 
George Eliot passed most^f her life uneventfully, save for fre- 
quent journeys on the continent. 

Once convinced that she could write novels, she concen- 
trated all her powers upon the task and the succeeding six- 
teen years were full of hard labor. “ Mill on the Floss” was 
followed by “Silas Marner” in 1 86 1, and two years later by 
“ Romola,” a story of Italian life which necessitated months of 
foreign travel and much study. Later came “ Felix Holt,” 
“ Middlemarch,” “ Daniel Deronda,” the poems,“ The Spanish 
Gypsy,” and “Jubal,” and lastly the “ Impressions of Theo- 
phrastus Such.” 

In 1878, two years after “ Daniel Deronda,” was published, 
Mr. Lewes died and George Eliot never recovered from the 
effects of his loss. Although she struggled against the depres- 
sion and ill health which now afflicted her more severely than 
ever, and two years later married an old friend, Mr. J. W. 
Cross, her future biographer, she never did any important 
literary work again. In the winter of the same year, 1880, 
she died. 

Although intellectually strong as a man, George Eliot’s 
nature was singularly timid and lacking in self-confidence. 
Indeed, in many respects Dorothea Brooke is a portrait of her- 
self. She needed always someone to lean o: , to encourage 
her in her work and to relieve her from all busir.ess cares, and 
without such assistance it is probable that her novels would 
never have been written. 

She threw her whole being into any task and lived with her 
characters, as the joy or tragedy of their lives for the time 
1» ing filled her w'orld. Hence, in spite of their humor her 
])ooks have an intensity, a moral earnestness that is often 
tragic. In spite of her human sympathy, she had no toler- 
ance for any form of wrong; she could not smile bitterly at it 
like Thackeray, nor politely ignore it like Scott. It filled her 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 


v> ith a great indignation to do something. She must feel that 
whatever she undertook was “ something — however small — 
that wanted to be done in this world.” She applied her 
friend Herbert Spencer’s theories of evolution to the realm of 
morals, and tried to show, by living illustration, that character is 
the development of conduct and that every least act has its 
effect upon the moral nature, as surely as all physical life is the 
outgrowth of primitive forms. 

Yet this zeal for right living is almost pathetic when we 
think that the great motive for goodness, the faith that must 
forever far surpass any philosophy of life in influencing the 
conduct of men, was wanting in George Eliot. She can ad- 
monish and warn and show us the inevitable consequences of 
evil, but the one thing that is needful is absent; no God rules 
in her world, only a system with which man must put himself 
in harmony or die. 

Like all great souls, however, she clings to the thought of 
moral goodness the more desperately, because that goodness 
stands for her in the place of God and this attitude of mind 
has never been better expressed than by Matthew Arnold — 

“ Cod’s 7uisdom and God’ s goodness ! — Ay, but fools 
Mis-define these till God knows them no more. 

Wisdom and goodness^ they are God! — what schools 
Have yet so much as heard this simpler love? 

This no saint preaches, and this no church rules, 

’Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.” 

The Novels. 

George Eliot’s novels, particularly the later ones, have all 
the defects of their virtues. Their moral earnestness, one of 
their chief sources of strength, often becomes direct moraliz- 
ing that retards the course of the narrative. She is not con- 
tent to let events speak for themselves, but must interfere in 
her own person to explain them, lest the ethical significance 
be lost upon the reader. 

So, too, in analysis of character George Eliot shows remark- 
able power of insight. She probes motives unerringly and 
her people do not simply move through a series of events — 
they grow before us, the child unfolds into a woman and not 
an element in her mental or moral development is lost for us. 

But here again her strength is a source of weakness, for, 
especially in the later books, the author becomes so absorbed 
in this fascinating study of motives, that she seemingly forgets 


lO 


INTRODUCTION. 


that events are necessary. She devotes whole pages to subtle 
analysis when a single situation, strikingly conceived and 
vividly told, would have revealed the springs of conduct far 
more clearly than the long pages of description. The essay- 
ist or historian, dealing with actual events, may be justified in 
such psychological discussions, but the novelist, who has the 
power to choose and order his situations to suit his own pur- 
pose, has a far surer and more effective method of revealing 
character. 

This fondness for discussion is but another indication that 
George Eliot’s imagination was of too purely intellectual a 
type to make the greatest work possible to her. In other 
words, she was not a poet. Although she wrote long poems 
and would have been glad, had it been possible, to have 
written “ Silas Marner ” in verse, she had not the exalted 
spiritual vision of the true poet nor that power of investing 
everything with the transmuting power of her own personality. 
This defect is especially noticeable in *• Romola,” a book 
greatly conceived and wTitten with infinite pains after years of 
such labor and research that the author declared, “ I began it 
a young woman, I finished it an old woman yet, in spite of 
great passages, the book never emerges from the workshop. 
In every page it declares to us that it is put together with im- 
mense care, that it is meant to be great, but it never lives be- 
fore us, it never absorbs and hurries us along to the final 
catastrophe with an interest that forbids analysis by the way. 
In greater or less degrees this lack of a vivifying power is felt 
in all George Eliot’s works. 

The undue predominance of the mental faculty, which Kept 
her work too purely in the realm of prose, has its effect upon 
her style. She is more apt to use abstract than concrete 
terms even when the use of the latter would be manifestly 
preferable, and her wide vocabulary shows a large propor- 
tion of Latin words. This ponderousness of diction, however, 
often results in a dry humor that is very effective, and her 
dialogues between country people are delightfully idiomatic 
and clever. 

Perhaps “ Silas Marner ” is freer from these defects than 
any other of the novels, although examples of them all may 
be found in its pages. It is less tragic, less weighed down 
with moral purpose than her other stories. Its theme, indeed, 
is the moral development of Silas Marner. But the influences 
that worked this change in him are so sweet and natural that 
the deep-seated loving kindness of the author finds scope, and 


INTRODUCTION. 


I I 

the simple country folk whom she loves fill her with a kind of 
humorous and tolerant sympathy which makes the pages of the 
book very gracious and winning. 

The story was written after the publication of “ Mill on the 
Floss,” while George Eliot was collecting material for 
“ Romola.” “ It came to me first quite suddenly,” she says, 
“ as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of 
having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weaver with a 
bag on his back, but, as my mind dwelt on the subject, I be- 
came inclined to a more realistic treatment. My chief reason 
for wishing to publish the story now is that I like my writings 
to appear in the order in which they are written, because they 
belong to successive mental phases, and when they are a year 
behind me I can no longer feel that thorough identification 
with them which gives zest to the sense of authorship. I 
generally like them better at that distance, but then I feel as 
if they might just as well have been written by somebody 
else.” 

Like most of the novels, the first part of “ Silas Marner ” is 
superior to the second portion, but the book is a more com- 
pletely rounded work than any of the others and the narrative 
is more swift ana condensed. Here events are made to tell 
their own story, and they do it in a way as inevitable as fate 
itself. The characters that are but slightly sketched, as well 
as those more carefully delineated, are real and convincing to 
a wonderful degree and they never crowd the canvas, as some- 
times happens in her other books. 

Few scenes of fiction are such masterpieces in their way as 
the conversation at the Rainbow between the butcher and the 
farrier; indeed, one enthusiastic critic has compared it to the 
adventures of Jack FalstafF. Some of the best examples, too, 
of George Eliot’s careful and faithful descriptions occur in this 
novel, and her method repays study. The moral purpose 
never outweighs the human interest and there is escape from 
its tragedy in the lives of Silas and Eppie, whose story is one 
of the sweetest in literature. 


XI 






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PART I. 


CHAPTER I. 

In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed 
busily in the farmhouses — and even great ladies, 
clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spin- 
ning-wheels of polished oak — there might be seen 
in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in 
the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized 
men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, 
looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. 
The shepherd’s dog barked fiercely when one of 
these alien-looking men appeared on the upland, 
dark against the early winter sunset ; for what 
dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag? — and 
these pale men rarely stirred abroad without that 
mysterious burden. 

The shepherd himself, though he had good reason 
to believe that the bag held nothing but flaxen 
thread, or else the long rolls of strong linen spun 
from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade 
of weaving, indispensable though it was, could be 
carried on entirely without the help of the Evil 
One. 

In that far-off time superstition clung easily 
around every person or thing that was at all 

I. Spinning-wheels. The thread that was given to the weaver was 
first spun at home by the housewife on her spinning-wheel. 

5. Lanes. Paths between the hedges which border English roads. 

22. Far-off time. The time of the story is placed in the opening years 
of the nineteenth century. 


5 

10 

15 

.20 


13 


14 


SILAS EARNER. 


unwonted, or even intermittent and occasional 
merely, like the visits of the pedler or the knife- 
grinder. No one knew where wandering men had 
their homes or their origin ; and how was a man 
6 to be explained unless you at least knew some- 
body who knew his father and mother ? 

To the peasants of old times, the world outside 
their own direct experience was a region of vague- 
ness and mystery : to their untravelled thought a 
10 state of wandering was a conception as dim as the 
winter life of the swallows that came back with the 
spring ; and even a settler, if he came from distant 
parts, hardly ever ceased to be viewed with a rem- 
nant of distrust, which would have prevented any 
15 surprise if a long course of inoffensive conduct on 
his part had ended in the commission of a crime ; 
especially if he had any reputation for knowledge, 
or showed any skill in handicraft. 

All cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that 
20 difficult instrument the tongue, or in some other 
art unfamiliar to villagers, was in itself suspicious : 
honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner, 
were mostly not over- wise or clever — at least, not 
beyond such a matter as knowing the signs of the 
26 weather ; and the process by which rapidity and 
dexterity of any kind were acquired was so wholly 
hidden, that they partook of the nature of con- 
juring. 

In this way it came to pass that those scattered 
30 linen-weavers — emigrants from the town into the 
country — were to the last regarded as aliens by 
their rustic neighbors, and usually contracted the 
eccentric habits which belong to a state of loneliness. 

In the early years of this century, such a linen- 

Conjuring. The use of magic and sleight-of-hand. 




SILAS MARNER. 


15 


weaver, named Silas Marner, worked at his vocation 
in a stone cottage that stood among the nutty 
hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far 
from the edge of a deserted stone-pit. The ques- 
tionable sound of Silas’s loom, so unlike the natural 5 
cheerful trotting of the winnowing-machine, or the 
simpler rhythm of the flail, had a half-fearful fasci- 
nation for the Raveloe boys, who would often leave 
off their nutting or birds’-nesting to peep in at the 
window of the stone cottage, counterbalancing a 10 
certain awe at the mysterious action of the loom, 
by a pleasant sense of scornful superiority, drawn 
from the mockery of its alternating noises, along 
with the bent, tread-mill attitude of the weaver. 

But sometimes it happened that Marner, pausing is 
to adjust an irregularity in his thread, became aware 
of the small scoundrels, and, though chary of his 
time, he liked their intrusion so ill that he would 
descend from his loom, and, opening the door, 
would fix on them a gaze that was always enough 20 
to make them take to their legs in terror. 
For how was it possible to believe that those large 
brown protuberant eyes in Silas Marner’s pale face 
really saw nothing very distinctly that was not close 
to them, and not rather that their dreadful stare 25 
could dart cramp, or rickets, or a wry mouth at any 
boy who happened to be in the rear? They had, 
perhaps, heard their fathers and mothers hint that 
Silas Marner could cure folks’ rheumatism if he 

3. Raveloe. Evidently a town situated in one of the central counties 
of England. George Eliot was bom in Warwickshire, and is fond of plac- 
ing the scene of her stories there. 

14. Tread-mill. A machine worked by a number of men treading con- 
tinuously on the steps of a cylinder. 

26 . Rickets. A nervous disease of children. 

26. Wry. Distorted. 


i6 


SILAS MARNER. 


had a mind, and add, still more darkly, that if you 
could only speak the devil fair enough, he might 
save you the cost of the doctor. 

Such strange, lingering echoes of the old demon- 
B worship might perhaps even now be caught by the 
diligent listener among the gray-haired peasantry ; 
for the rude mind with difficulty associates the 
ideas of power and benignity. A shadowy con- 
ception of power that by much persuasion can be 
10 induced to refrain from inflicting harm, is the shape 
most easily taken by the sense of the Invisible in 
the minds of men who have always been pressed 
close by primitive wants, and to whom a life of 
hard toil has never been illuminated by any enthu- 
15 siastic religious faith. To them pain and mishap 
present a far wider range of possibilities than glad- 
ness and enjoyment : their imagination is almost 
barren of the images that feed desire and hope, but 
is all overgrown by recollections that are a perpet- 
20 ual pasture to fear. 

Is there anything you can fancy that you would 
like to eat?” I once said to an old laboring man, 
who was in his last illness, and who had refused all 
the food his wife had offered him. ‘‘ No,” he 
25 answered, I’ve never been used to nothing but 
common victual, and I can’t eat that.” Experience 
had bred no fancies in him that could raise the 
phantasm of appetite. 

And Raveloe was a village where many of the old 
30 echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices. Not 
that it was one of those barren parishes lying on 

4. Demon-worship. Demons were lesser gods, spirits of good or evil, 
which have been feared by all primitive people. 

22. I. Note the introduction here of the author’s own personality. 
What is the effect upon the story? 

31. Parishes A church district under the charge of a single pastor. 
These districts are about the size of an American township. 


SILAS MARKER. 


17 


the outskirts of civilization — inhabited by meagre 
sheep and thinly-scattered shepherds : on the con- 
trary, it lay in the rich central plain of what we are 
pleased to call Merry England, and held farms 
which, speaking from a spiritual point of view, paid 
highly-desirable tithes. But it was nestled in a 
snug, well-wooded hollow, quite an hour’s journey 
on horseback from any turnpike, where it was never 
reached by the vibrations of the coach-horn, or of 
public opinion. 

It was an important-looking village, with a fine 
old church and large churchyard in the heart of 
it, and two or three large brick-and-stone home- 
steads, with well-walled orchards and ornamental 
weathercocks, standing close upon the road, and 
lifting more imposing fronts than the rectory, which 
peeped from among the trees on the other side of 
the churchyard — a village which showed at once 
the summits of its social life and told the practised 
eye that there was no great park and manor-house 
in the vicinity, but that there were several chiefs in 
Raveloe who could farm badly quite at their ease, 
drawing enough money from their bad farming, in 
those war times, to live in a rollicking fashion, and 
keep a jolly Christmas, Whitsun, and Easter-tide. 

6. Tithes. A tax levied on the members of the parish for the support 
of the church. Originally this tax was a tenth part of the yearly proceeds 
of an estate, and hence its name. 

8. Turnpike. Public highways, usually owned by the state or nation, 
for the use of which a tax or toll used to be charged. 

9. Coach-horn. This was before the day of railroads, when coaches 
still made their daily trips between town and city. 

13. Homesteads. The estates of the independent landowners and 
farmers as distinguished from the “ manor-house.” 

24. Wartimes. The war with Napoleon and France, which lasted 
from 1793 to 1815. On account of the war, the prices of provisions were 
very high, and the small farmers unusually prosperous in consequence. 

25. Whitsun. Whitsunday, the feast of Pentecost It is celebrated 
on the seventh Sunday after Easter, when the gift of the Holy Ghost 
descended upon the apostles. 

2 -. T"5? O’ 1 E’T’h'h fer 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


1 8 SILAS MARKER. 

It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first 
come to Raveloe ; he was then simply a pallid 
young man, with prominent, short-sighted brown 
eyes, whose appearance would have had nothing 
estrange for people of average culture and experi- 
ence, but for the villagers near whom he had come 
to settle it had mysterious peculiarities which 
corresponded with the exceptional nature of his 
occupation, and his advent from an unknown 
10 region called North'ard.^’ So had his way of 
life — he invited no comer to step across his door- 
sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink 
a pint at the Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheel- 
wright’s : he sought no man or woman, save for the 
15 purposes of his calling, or in order to supply him- 
self with necessaries ; and it was soon clear to the 
Raveloe lasses that he would never urge one of 
them to accept him against her will — quite as if 
he had heard them declare that they would never 
20 marry a dead man come to life again. 

This view of Marner’ s personality was not with- 
out another ground than his pale face and unex- 
ampled eyes; for Jem Rodney, the mole-cr'tch:., 
averred that one evening as he was returning home- 
25 ward he saw Silas Marner leaning against a stile 
with a heavy bag on his back, instead of resting 
the bag on the stile as a man in his senses would 
have done; and that, on coming up to him, he 
saw that Marner’s eyes were set like a dead man’s, 
30 and he spoke to him, and shook him, and his limbs 
were stiff, and his hands clutched the bag as if 
they’d been made of iron ; but just as he had made 
up his mind that the weaver was dead, he came all 

13. Rainbow. The small English inns are distinguished by their 
fanciful names. 


SILAS MARNER. 


19 


right again, like, as you might say, in the winking 
of an eye, and said Good-night,” and walked off. 

All this Jem swore he had seen, more by token 
that it was the very day he had been mole-catching 
on Squire Cass’s land, down by the old saw-pit. ^ 
Some said Marner must have been in a fit,” a 
word which seemed to explain things otherwise in- 
credible ; but the argumentative Mr. Macey, clerk 
of the parish, shook his head, and asked if any- 
body was ever known to go off in a fit and not falH^^ 
down. A fit was a stroke, wasn’t it? and it was in 
the nature of a stroke to partly take away the use 
of a man’s limbs and throw him on the parish, if 
he’d got no children to look to. No, no ; it w^as 
no stroke that would let a man stand on his legs, 
like a horse between the shafts, and then walk off 
as soon as you can say ‘^Gee ! ” 

But there might be such a thing as a man’s soul 
being loose from his body, and going out and in, 
like a bird out of its nest and back ; and that was 20 
how folks got over-wise, for they went to school 
in this shell-less state to those who could teach 
them more than their neighbors could learn with 
their five senses and the parson. And where did 
Master Marner get his knowledge of herbs from 
— and charms, too, if he liked to give them away? 

3. Token. A dialectic form for “ especially since." 

5. Squire. The squire was originally an attendant upon a knight, 
and, although not a nobleman, received a coat-of-arms. In later times he 
became the most important member of a parish and was justice of the 
peace. 

8. Clerk. A layman who leads the responses in the Church of Eng- 
land when there is but one ofliciaiing clergyman. 

12. Partly. Is this position of the adverb good usage? 

13. Parish. Parish here is used in the sense of “town”; that is, 
throw him on the town for support. 

*5* Herbs. Plants which possessed medicinal properties. 


20 


SILAS MARNER. 


Jem Rodney’s story was no more than what might 
have been expected by anybody who had seen how 
Marner had cured Sally Oates, and made her sleep 
like a baby, when her heart had been beating 
8 enough to burst her body, for two months and 
more, while she had been under the doctor’s care. 
He might cure more folks if he would ; but he was 
worth speaking fair, if it was only to keep him 
from doing you a mischief. 

10 It was partly to this vague fear that Marner was 
indebted for protecting him from the persecution 
that his singularities might have drawn upon him, 
but still more to the fact that, the old linen- weaver 
in the neighboring parish of Tarley being dead, his 
15 handicraft made him a highly welcome settler to the 
richer housewives of the district, and even to the 
more provident cottagers, who had their little stock 
of yarn at the year’s end. Their sense of his use- 
fulness would have counteracted any repugnance or 
20 suspicion which was not confirmed by a deficiency 
in the quality or the tale of the cloth he wove for 
them. And the years had rolled on without pro- 
ducing any change in the impressions of the neigh- 
bors concerning Marner, except the change from 
ii5 novelty to habit. 

At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said 
just the same things about Silas Marner as at the 
beginning ; they did not say them quite so often, 
but they believed them much more strongly when 
30 they did say them. There was only one important 
addition which the years had brought : it was, that 
Master Marner had laid by a fine sight of money 

i6. Housewives. This name was only given to the wives of the 
more important independent farmers; the others were only cottagers. 

21. Tale. Reckoning or amount; from the old Saxon verb to 
count. 


SILAS MARNER. 


21 

somewhere, and that he could buy up “ bigger 
men than himself. 

But while opinion concerning him had remained 
nearly stationary, and his daily habits had presented 
scarcely any visible change, Marner’s inward life s 
had been a history and a metamorphosis, as that of 
every fervid nature must be when it has fled, or 
been condemned to solitude. His life, before he 
came to Raveloe, had been filled with the move- 
ment, the mental activity, and the close fellowship, lo 
which, in that day as in this, marked the life of an 
artisan early incorporated in a narrow religious sect, 
where the poorest layman has a chance of distin- 
guishing himself by gifts of speech, and has, at the 
very least, the weight of a silent voter in the is 
government of his community. 

Marher was highly thought of in that little hidden 
world, known to itself as the church, assembling in 
Lantern Yard ; he was believed to be a young man 
of exemplary life and ardent faith; and a peculiar 20 
interest had been centred in him ever since he had 
fallen, at a prayer-meeting, into a mysterious rigidity 
and suspension of consciousness, which, lasting for 
an hour or more, had been mistaken for death. To 
have sought a medical explanation for this phenom- 25 
enon would have been held by Silas himself, as well 
as by his minister and fellow-members, a wilful self- 
exclusion from the spiritual significance that might 
lie therein. 

Silas was evidently a brother selected for a 30 

1. Bigger men. Quoted as slang. 

6. Metamorphosis. Change or transition. 

12. Religious sect. That is, not a part of the Established or Anglican 
Church. 

23. Suspension of consciousness. The symptoms of a cataleptic fit. 


22 


SILAS MARKER. 


peculiar discipline ; and though the effort to 
interpret this discipline was discouraged by the 
absence, on his part, of any spiritual vision during 
his outward trance, yet it was believed by himself 
sand others that its effect was seen in an accession 
of light and fervor. A less truthful man than he 
might have been tempted into the subsequent cre- 
ation of a vision in the form of resurgent memory ; 
a less sane man might have believed in such a 
10 creation ; but Silas was both sane and honest, 
though, as with many honest and fervent men, 
culture had not defined any channels for his sense 
of mystery, and so it spread itself over the proper 
pathway of inquiry and knowledge. 

15 He: had inherited from his mother some acquain- 
tance with medicinal herbs and their preparation 
— a little store of wisdom which she had imparted 
to him as a solemn bequest — but of late years he 
had had doubts about the lawfulness of applying 
20 this knowledge, believing that herbs could have no 
efficacy without prayer, and that prayer might suffice 
without herbs ; so that his inherited delight to 
wander through the fields in search of foxglove and 
dandelion and coltsfoot, began to wear to him the 
25 character of a temptation. 

Among the members of his church there was one 
young man, a little older than himself, with whom 
he had long lived in such close friendship that it 
was the custom of their Lantern Yard brethren to 
30 call them David and Jonathan. The real name of 

23. Foxglove. A poisonous plant, the flowers of which resemble the 
fingers of a glove. 

24. Coltsfoot. A medicinal herb. 

30. David and Jonathan. See I. Sam. xviii: And it came to pass 

. . . that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and 

Jonathan Ijoved him as his own soul.” 


SILAS MARNER. 


23 


the friend was William Dane, and he, too, was re- 
garded as a shining instance of youthful piety, 
though somewhat given to over-severity towards 
weaker brethren, and to be so dazzled by his own 
light as to hold himself wiser than his teachers. 6 
But whatever blemishes others might discern in 
William, to his friend’s mind he was faultless ; for 
Marner had one of those impressible, self-doubting 
natures which, at an inexperienced age, admire im-*^ 
perativeness and lean on contradiction. 10 

The expression of trusting simplicity in Marner’s 
face, heightened by that absence of special obser- 
vation, that defenceless deer-like gaze which belongs 
to large prominent eyes, was strongly contrasted by 
the self-complacent suppression of inward triumph 
that lurked in the narrow slanting eyes and com- 
pressed lips of William Dane. 

One of the most frequent topics of conversation 
between the two friends was Assurance of salvation : 
Silas confessed that he could never arrive at any- 20 
thing higher than hope mingled with fear, and 
listened with wonder when William declared that 
he had possessed unshaken assurance ever since, in 
the period of his conversion, he had dreamed that 
he saw the words calling and election sure” 25 
standing by themselves on a white page in the 
open Bible. Such colloquies have occupied many 
a pair of pale-faced weavers, whose unnurtured 
souls have been like young winged things, fluttering 
forsaken in the twilight. 30 

It had seemed to the unsuspecting Silas that the 
friendship had suffered no chill eveu from his 


8. Impressible. More usual, impressionable. 


24 


SILAS MARNER. 


formation of another attachment of a closer kind. 
For some months he had been engaged to a young 
servant-woman, waiting only for a little increase to 
their mutual savings in order to their marriage ; and 
6 it was a great delight to him that Sarah did not 
object to William’s occasional presence in their 
Sunday interviews. It was at this point in their 
history that Silas’s cataleptic fit occurred during the 
prayer-meeting ; and amidst the various queries and 
10 expressions of interest addressed to him by his 
fellow-members, William’s suggestion alone jarred 
with the general sympathy towards a brother thus 
singled out for special dealings. He observed that 
to him, this trance looked more like a visitation of 
15 Satan than a proof of divine favor, and exhorted 
his friend to see that he hid no accursed thing 
within his soul. 

Silas, feeling bound to accept rebuke and admo- 
nition as a brotherly office, felt no resentment, but 
20 only pain, at his friend’s doubts concerning him ; 
and to this was soon added some anxiety at the 
perception that Sarah’s manner towards him began 
to exhibit a strange fluctuation between an effort 
at an increased manifestation of regard and invol- 
25untary signs of shrinking and dislike. He asked 
her if she wished to break off their engagement ; but 
she denied this : their engagement was known to 
the church, and had been recognized in the prayer- 
meetings ; it could not be broken off without strict 
30 investigation, and Sarah could render no reason 
that would be sanctioned by the feeling of the 
community. 

At this time the senior deacon was taken danger- 
ously ill, and, being a childless widower, he was 

3- Increase to. The more idiomatic use is “ increase in.” 


SILAS MARNER. 


25 


tended night and day by some of the younger 
brethren or sisters. Silas frequently took his turn 
in the night-watching with William, the one reliev- 
ing the other at two in the morning. The old man, 
contrary to expectation, seemed to be on the way s 
to recovery, when one night Silas, sitting up by hi^ 
bedside, observed that his usual audible breathing 
had ceased. The candle was burning low, and he 
had to lift it to see the patient’s face distinctly. 
Examination convinced him that the deacon was^^ 
dead — had been dead some time, for the limbs 
were rigid. 

Silas asked himself if he had been asleep, and 
looked at the clock : it was already four in the 
morning. How was it that William had not come? 15 
In much anxiety he went to seek for help, and 
soon there were several friends assembled in the 
house, the minister among them, while Silas went 
awiiy to his work, wishing he could have met William 
to know the reason of his non-appearance. But at 20 
six o’clock, as he was thinking of going to seek his 
friend, William came, and with him the minister. 

They came to summon him to Lantern Yard, to 
meet the church members there ; and to his inquiry 
concerning the cause of the summons the only 25 
reply was, You will hear.” Nothing further was 
said until Silas was seated in the vestry, in front of 
the minister, with the eyes of those who to him 
represented God’s people fixed solemnly upon him. 
Then the minister, taking out a pocket-knife, 30 
showed it to Silas, and asked him if he knew 
where he had left that knife? Silas said he did 
not know that he had left it anywhere out of his 
own pocket — but he was trembling at this strange 
interrogation. He was then exhorted not to hide ,5 


26 


SILAS MARNER. 


his sin, but to confess and repent. The knife had 
been found in the bureau by the departed deacon’s 
bedside — found in the place where the little bag of 
church money had lain, which the minister himself 
had seen the day before. Some hand had removed 
that bag ; and whose hand could it be, if not that 
of the man to whom the knife belonged? 

For some time Silas was mute with astonishment : 
th^u he said, ** God will clear me : I know nothing 
10 about the knife being there, or the money being 
gone. Search me and my dwelling ; you will find 
nothing but three pound five of my own savings, 
which William Dane knows I have had these six 
months.” 

15 At this William groaned, but the minister said. 
The proof is heavy againt you, brother Marner* 
The money was taken in the night last past, and no 
man was with our departed brother but you, for 
William Dane declares to us that he was hindered 
20 by sudden sickness from going to take his place as 
usual, and you yourself said that he had not come ; 
and, moreover, you neglected the dead body.” 

‘*1 must have slept,” said Silas. Then after a 
pause, he added, ‘‘Or I must have had another 
26 visitation like that which you have all seen me 
under, so that the thief must have come and gone 
while I was not in the body, but out of the body. 
But, I say again, search me and my dwelling, foi 
I have been nowhere else.” 

30 The search was made, and it ended — in William 
Dane’s finding the well-known bag, empty, tucked 
behind the chest of drawers in Silas’s chamber ! 
On this William exhorted his friend to confess, and 

12. Three pound five That is, three pounds, five shillings; about 
sixteen dollars oi our currency. 


SILAS MARNER. 


27 


not to hide his sin any longer. Silas turned a look 
of keen reproach on him, and said, ‘‘ William, for 
nine years that we have gone in and out together, 
have you ever, known me to tell a lie? But God 
will clear me.” s 

Brother,” said William, ‘‘how do I know what 
you may have done in the secret chambers of your 
heart, to give Satan an advantage over you? ” 

Silas was still looking at his friend. Suddenly a 
deep flush came over his face, and he was about to 
speak impetuously, when he seemed checked again 
by some inward shock, that sent the flush back and 
made him tremble. But at last he spoke feebly, 
looking at William. 

‘I remember now — the knife wasn’t in my^^ 
pocket.” 

William said, “ I know nothing of what you 
mean.” The other persons present, however, be- 
gan to inquire where Silas meant to say that the 
knife was, but he would give no further explanation ; ^ 
he only said, “ I am sore stricken ; I can say noth- 
ing. God will clear me.” 

On their return to the vestry there was further 
deliberation. Any resort to legal measures for as- 
certaining the culprit was contrary to the princi-^^ 
pies of the church in Lantern Yard, according to 
which prosecution was forbidden to Christians, even 
had tie case held less scandal to the community. 

^ But the members were bound to take other meas- 
ures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on ^ 


21. Stricken A common Biblical expression. Their zeal for primi- 
tive Christianity, as they conceived it, led the members of the sects to 
adopt even the phraseology of the Bible. 

23. Vestry. The word here means merely a small room attached to a 
meeting-house for meetings, social gatherings, etc. 


28 


SILAS MARNER. 


praying and drawing lots. This resolution can be a 
ground of surprise only to those who are unac- 
quainted with that obscure religious life which has 
gone on in the alleys of our towns. Silas knelt 
6 with his brethren, relying on his own innocence be- 
ing certified by immediate divine interference, but 
feeling that there was sorrow and mourning behind 
for him even then — that his trust in man had been 
cruelly bruised. 

10 The lots declared that Silas Marner was guilty, 
.He was solemnly suspended from church-member- 
ship, and called upon to render up the stolen 
money ; only on confession, as the sign of repent- 
ance, could he be received once more within the 
15 folds of the church. Marner listened in silence. 
At last, when everyone rose to depart, he went 
towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken 
by agitation : 

The last time I remember using my knife, was 
20 when I took it out to cut a strap for you. I don’t 
remember putting it in my pocket again. You 
stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay 
the sin at my door. But you may prosper, for all 
that ; there is no just God that governs the earth 
26 righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness 
against the innocent.” 

There was a general shudder at this blasphemy. 

William said meekly, I leave our brethren to 
judge whether this is the voice of Satan or not. I 
30 can do nothing but pray for you, Silas.” 

1 . Drawing lots. This primitive custom is often mentioned in the 
Bible. In Leviticus we read; “ And he shall take the two goats, and 
present them before the Lord at the door ot the tabernacle of the congre- 
gation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the 
Lord, and the other for the scapegoat And Aaron shall bring the goat 
upon which the Lord’s lot fell and offer him for a sin offering.” See also 
Josh. xiii. 6. 


SILAS MARNER. 


29 


Poor Marner went out with that despair in his 
soul — that shaken trust in God and man, which is 
little short of madness to a loving nature. In the 
bitterness of his wounded spirit, he said to himself. 
She will cast me off, too.’* And he reflected that, s 
if she did not believe the testimony against him, 
her whole faith must be upset as his was. To 
people accustomed to reason about the forms in 
which their religious feeling has incorporated itself, 
it is difficult to enter into that simple, untaught 
state of mind in which the form and the feeling 
have never been severed by an act of reflection. 

We are apt to think it inevitable that a man in 
Manier’s position should have begun to question 
the validity of an appeal to the divine judgment by is 
drawing lots ; but to him this would have been an 
effort of independent thought such as he had never 
known ; and he must have made the effort at a 
moment when all his energies were turned into the 
anguish of disappointed faith. If there is an angel 20 
who records the sorrows of men as well as their 
sins, he knows how many and deep are the sorrows 
that spring from false ideas for which no man is 
culpable. 

Marner went home, and for a whole day sat 22 
alone, stunned by despair, without any impulse to 
go to Sarah and attempt to win her belief in his 
innocence. The second day he took refuge from 
benumbing unbelief, by getting into his loom and 
working away as usual; and before many hours 
were past, the minister and one of the deacons 
came to him with the message from Sarah, that she 
held her engagement to him at an end. Silas re- 

8. Forms. Forms of church ritual, 
tj. Getting into his loom. Read the description of a loom. 


30 


SILAS MARNE R. 


ceived the message mutely, and then turned away 
from the messengers to work at his loom again. 
In a little more than a month from that time, Sarah 
was married to William Dane ; and not long after- 
6 wards it was known to the brethren in Lantern 
Yard that Silas Marner had departed from the town. 


CHAPTER II. 

Even people whose lives have been made various 
bv learning, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast 

)ld on their habitual views of life, on their faith in 
1 le Invisible, nay, on the sense that their past joys 
_nd sorrows are a real experience, when they are 
suddenly transported to a new land, where the 
beings around them know nothing of their history, 
and share none of their ideas — where their mother 
15 earth shows another lap, and human life has other 
forms than those on which their souls have been 
nourished. Minds that have been unhinged from 
their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this 
Lethean influence of exile, in which the past 
20 becomes dreamy because its symbols have all van- 
ished, and the present, too, is dreamy because it is 
linked with no memories. But even iheir experi- 
ence may hardly enable them thoroughly to imagine 
what was the effect on a simple weaver like Silas 
25 Marner, when he left his own country and people 
and came to settle in Raveloe. 

Nothing could be more unlike his native town, 
set within sight of the widespread hillsides, than 

7. Various. Lives which are full of diversified interests. 

iq. Lethean In classic mythology, Lethe was one of the three great 
rivers of the underworld. Its waters brought forgetfulness of the past to 
all who drank of them. 


SILAS MARNER. 


31 


this low, wooded region, where he felt hidden 
even from the heavens by the screening trees 
and hedgerows. There was nothing here, when 
he rose in the deep morning quiet and looked 
out on the dewy brambles and rank tufted grass, 
that seemed to have any relation with that life 
centring in Lantern Yard, which had once been 
to him the altar-place of high dispensations. The 
whitewashed walls ; the little pews where well- 
known figures entered with a subdued rustling, and 
where first one well-known voice and then another, 
pitched in a peculiar key of petition, uttered 
phrases at once occult and familiar, like the amulet 
worn on the heart ; the pulpit where the minister 
delivered unquestioned doctrine, and swayed to 
and fro, and handled the book in a long-accus- 
tomed manner; the very pauses between the coup- 
lets of the hymn, as it was given out, and the 
recurrent swell of voices in song : these things had 
been the channel of divine influences to Marner — 
they were the fostering home of his religious emo- 
tions — they were Christianity and God’s kingdom 
upon earth. A weaver who finds hard words in his 
hymn-book knows nothing of abstractions ; as the 
little child knows nothing of parental love, but only 
knows one face and one lap towards which it 
stretches its arms for refuge and nurture. 

3. Hedgerows. Rows of trees or shrubs often take the place of 
fences or walls in England, even dividing fields from one another. 

8 Altar-place The most sacred part of the church where the 
Eucharist is celebrated. It means here the source of religious authority. 

13. Occult. Mysterious, obscure. 

13. Amulet. A charm, worn as a protection against disease, evil 
spirits, ill-luck, etc. They generally consisted of stone«. metal, plants, 
or kindred objects. 

17. Couplets. Two rhymed lines of poetry. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 


32 


SILAS MARNER. 


And what could be more unlike that I.antern 
Yard world than the world in Raveloe ? — orchards 
looking lazy with neglected plenty ; the large 
church in the wide churchyard, which men gazed 
A at lounging at their own doors in service- time ; the 
purple-faced farmers jogging along the lanes or 
turning in at the Rainbow ; homesteads, where men 
supped heavily and slept in the light of the evening 
hearth, and where women seemed to be laying up a 
10 stock of linen for the life to come. There were no 
lips in Raveloe from which a word could fall that 
would stir Silas Marner’s benumbed faith to a sense 
of pain. 

In the early ages of the world, we know, it 
believed that each territory was inhabited and 
its own divinities, so that a man could 
cross tnc bordering heights and be out of the reach 
of his native gods, whose presence was confined to 
the streams and the groves and the hills among 
20 which he had lived from his birth. And poor Silas 
was vaguely conscious of something not unlike the 
feeling of primitive men, when they fled thus, in 
fear or in sullenness, from the face of an unpro- 
pitious deity. It seemed to him that the Power he 
25 had vainly trusted in among the streets and at the 
prayer-meetings, was very far away from this land 
in which he had taken refuge, where men lived in 
careless abundance, knowing and needing nothing 
of that trust, which, for him, had been turned to 
^ bitterness. The little light he possessed spread its 

3 . Large church. Contrast this with the “ whitewashed walls; the 
little pews,” etc. All who were not Anglicans were called Non-conform- 
ists, because they did not subscribe to the Act of Uniformity of i66a, 
which demanded assent to everything contained in the Book of Common 
Prayer. 

i6. Its own divinities. For example, the nymphs inhabited the sea 
and streams, the dryads the woods, etc. 


SILAS MARNER. 


33 


beams so narrowly, that frustrated belief was a cur- 
tain broad enough to create for him the blackness 
of night. 

His first movement after the shock had been to 
work in his loom ; and he went on with this imre- ® 
mittingly, never asking himself why, now he was 
come to Raveloe, he worked far on into the night 
to finish the tale of Mrs. Osgood’s table-linen 
sooner than she expected — without contemplating 
beforehand the money she would put into his hand lo 
for the work. He seemed to weave, like the 
spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. 
Every man’s work, pursued steadily, tends in this 
way to become an end in itself, and so to bridge 
over the loveless chasms of his life. Silas’s handle 
satisfied itself with throwing the shuttle, and his 
eye with seeing the little squares in the cloth com- 
plete themselves under his effort. Then there were 
the calls of hunger ; and Silas, in his solitude, had 
to provide his own breakfast, dinner, and supper, to 20 
fetch his own water from the well, and p.ut his own 
kettle on the fire ; and all these immediate prompt- 
ings helped, along with the weaving, to reduce his 
life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning 
insect. He hated the thought of the past; there 25 
was nothing that called out his love and fellowship 
toward the strangers he had come amongst ; and 
the future was all dark, for there was no Unseen 
Love that cared for him. Thought was arrested by 
utter bewilderment, now its old narrow pathway 30 
was closed, and affection seemed to have died 
under the bruise that had fallen on its keenest 
nerves. 

16. Shuttle. The instrument by which the thread is shot to and fro 
in weaving. 


34 


SILAS MARNER. 


But at last Mrs. Osgood’s table-linen was finished, 
and Silas was paid in gold. His earnings in his 
native town, where he worked for a wholesale 
dealer, had been after a lower rate ; he had been 
5 paid weekly, and of his weekly earnings a large 
proportion had gone to objects of piety and charity. 
Now, for the first time in his life, be had five bright 
guineas put into his hand; no man expected a 
share of them, and he loved no man that he should 
10 offer him a share. But what were the guineas to 
him who saw no vista beyond countless days of 
vreaving? It was needless for him to ask that, for 
it was pleasant to him to feel them in his palm, 
and look at their bright faces, which were all his 
15 own ; it was another element of life, like the weav- 
ing and the satisfaction of hunger, subsisting quite 
aloof from the life of belief and love from which he 
had been cut off. 

The weaver’s hand had known the touch of hard- 
20 won money even before the palm had grown to its 
full breadth ; for twenty years, mysterious money 
had stood to him as the symbol of earthly good, 
and the immediate object of toil. He had seemed 
to love it little in the years when every penny had 
25 its purpose for him ; for he loved the purpose then. 
But now, when all purpose was gone, that habit of 
looking towards the money and grasping it with a 
sense of fulfilled effort made a loam that was deep 
enough for the seeds of desire ; and as Silas walked 
30 homeward across the fields in the twilight, he drew 
out the money and thought it was brighter in the 
gathering gloom. 

4. After. A colloquialism for “ according to.” 

8. Guineas. An English coin made of gold and valued at twenty- 
one shillings, or about four dollars and eighty eight cents. 


SILAS MARNER. 


35 


About this time an incident happened which 
seemed to open a possibility of some fellowship 
with his neighbors. One day, taking a pair of shoes 
to be mended, he saw the cobbler’s wife seated by 
the fire, suffering from the terrible symptoms of 5 
heart-disease and dropsy, which he had witnessed 
as the precursors of his mother’s death. He felt a 
rush of pity at the mingled sight and remembrance, 
and, recalling the relief his mother had found from 
a simple preparation of foxglove, he promised Sally 10 
Oates to bring her something that would ease her, 
since the doctor did her no good. 

In this office of charity, Silas felt, for the first 
time since he had come to Raveloe, a sense of unity 
between his past and present life, which might have is 
been the beginning of his rescue from the insect- 
like existence into which his nature had shrunk. 
But Sally Oates’s disease had raised her into a per- 
sonage of much interest and importance among the 
neighbors, and the fact of her having found relief 20 
from drinking Silas Marner’s stuff ” became a 
matter of general discourse. 

When Dr. Kimble gave physic, it was natural 
that it should have an effect ; but when a weaver 
who came from nobody knew where, worked 26 
wonders with a bottle of brown waters, the occult 
character of the process was evident. Such a sort 
of thing had not been known since the Wise Woman 
at Tarley died; and she had charms as well as 

stuff ” ; everybody went to her when their chil- 30 
dren had fits. Silas Marner must be a person of 
the same sort, for how did he know what would 
bring back Sally Oates’s breath, if he didn’t know a 
fine sight more than that? The Wise Woman had 

34. Fine sight. Slang for “ a great deal.” 


36 


SILAS MARNER. 


words that she muttered to herself, so that you 
couldn’t hear what they were, and if she tied a bit 
of red thread round the child’s toe the while, it 
would keep off the water in the head. There were 
6 women in Raveloe, at the present time, who had 
worn one of the Wise Woman’s little bags round 
their necks, and, in consequence, had never had an 
idiot child, as Ann Coulter had. Silas Marner 
could very likely do as much, and more ; and now 
10 it was all clear how he should have come from un- 
known parts, and be so ‘‘comical looking.” But 
Sally Oates must mind and not tell the doctor, for 
he would be sure to set his face against Marner ; he 
was always angry about the Wise Woman, and used 
16 to threaten those who went to her that they should 
have none of his help any more. 

Silas now found himself and his cottage suddenly 
beset by mothers who wanted him to charm away 
the whooping-cough, or bring back the milk, and by 
20 men who wanted stuff against the rheumatics or the 
knots in the hands ; and to secure themselves 
against a refusal, the applicants brought silver in 
their palms, 

Silas might have driven a profitable trade in 
26 charms as well as in his small list of drugs; but 
money on this condition was no temptation to him ; 
he had never known an inpulse towards falsity, and 
he drove one after another away with growing irrita- 
tion, for the news of him as a wise man had spread 
30 even to Tarley, and it was long before people 
ceased to take long walks for the sake of asking his 
aid. But the hope in his wisdom was at length 
changed into dread, for no one believed him when 
he said he knew no charms and could work nc 


82. Silver. As it was the custom to do with gypsy fortune-tellers. 


SILAS MARNER. 


37 


cures, and every man and woman who had an acci- 
dent or a new attack after applying to him, set the 
misfortune down to Master Marner’s ill-will and 
irritated glances. Thus it came to pass that his 
movement of pity towards Sally Oates, which had ^ 
given him a transient sense of brotherhood, height- 
ened the repulsion between him and his neighbors, 
and made his isolation more complete.' 

Gradually the guineas, the crowns, and the half- 
crowns, grew to a heap, and Marner drew less and lo 
less for his own wants, trying to solve the problem 
of keeping himself strong enough to work sixteen 
hours a day on as small an outlay as possible. 
Have not men, shut up in solitary imprisonment, 
found an interest in marking the moments by is 
straight strokes of a certain length on the wall, 
until the growth of the sum of straight strokes, 
arranged in triangles, has become a mastering 
purpose. Do we not wile away moments of inanity 
or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial move- 20 
ment or sound, until the repetition has bred a 
want, which is incipient habit ? That will help us 
to understand how the love of accumulating money 
grows an absorbing passion in men whose imagina- 
tions, even in the very beginning of their hoard, 25 
showed them no purpose beyond it. 

Marner wanted the heaps of ten to grow into a 
square, and then into a larger square ; and every 
added guinea, while it was itself a satisfaction, bred 
a new desire. In this strange world, made a hope- 30 
less riddle to him, he might, if he had had a less 
intense nature, have sat weaving, weaving — look- 
ing towards the end of his pattern, or towards the 

9. Crowns. A silver coin, so called from the crown or crowned 
head impressed on one face. It is worth five shillings, or one dollar and 
iwenty-two cents. 


38 


SILAS MARNER. 


end of his web, till he forgot the riddle, and every- 
thing else but his immediate sensations ; but the 
money had come to mark off his weaving into 
periods, and the money not only grew, but it 
5 remained with him. 

He began to think it Wcts conscious of him, as 
his loom was, and he would on no account have 
exchanged those coins, which had become his 
familiars, for other coins with unknown faces. He 
w handled them, he counted them, till their form and 
color were like the satisfaction of a thirst to him ; 
but it was only in the night, when his work was 
done, that he drew them out to enjoy their com- 
panionship. He had taken up some bricks in his 
15 floor underneath his loom, and here he had made 
a hole in which he set the iron pot that contained 
his guineas and silver coins, covering the bricks 
with sand whenever he replaced them. 

Not that the idea of being robbed presented 
20 itself often or strongly to his mind : hoarding was 
common in country districts in those days ; there 
were old laborers in the parish of Raveloe who 
were known to have their savings by them, prob- 
ably inside their flock-beds ; but their rustic neigh- 
26 bors, though not all of them as honest as their 
ancestors in the days of King Alfred, had not 
imaginations bold enough to lay a plan of burglary. 
How could they have spent the money in their 
own village without betraying themselves? They 
«o would be obliged to ‘‘run away” — a course as 
dark and dubious as a balloon journey. 

24, Flcck-beds. So called from the fact that they were filled with 
small pieces of wool, the Latin word for which is Jloccus. 

26. King Alfred. The greatest of England’s Saxon kings. He 
united the various small kingdoms under one leadership, and introduced 
schools and books In his reign it was said that a purse of money might 
lie untouched upon the public highway 


SILAS MARNER. 


39 


So, year after year, Silas Marner had lived in 
this solitude, his guineas rising in the iron pot, and 
his life narrowing and hardening itself more and 
more into a mere pulsation of desire and satis- 
faction that had no relation to any other being. 6 
His life had reduced itself to the functions of 
weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation 
of an end toward which the functions tended. 

The same sort of process has perhaps been 
undergone by wiser men, when they have beenio 
cut off from faith and love — only, instead of a 
loom and a heap of guineas, they have had some 
erudite research, some ingenious project, or some 
well-knit theory. 

Strangely Marner’s face and figure shrank and i5 
bent themselves into a constant mechanical relation 
to the objects of his life, so that he produced the 
same sort of impression as a handle or a crooked 
tube, which has no meaning standing apart. The 
prominent eyes that used to look trusting and 20 
dreamy, now looked as if they had been made to 
see only one kind of thing that was very small, like 
tiny grain, for which they hunted everywhere : and 
he was so withered and yellow, that, though he 
was not yet forty, the children always called him 25 
*‘01d Master Marner.” 

Yet even in this stage of withering a little inci- 
dent happened, which showed that the sap of 
affection was not all gone. It was one of his daily 
tasks to fetch his water from a well a couple of30 
fields off, and for this purpose, ever since he came 
to Raveloe, he had had a brown earthenware pot, 

15. Face and figure. Tt is a well-known psychological fact that a 
man’s habitual occupation stamps its impress upon his features. 

28. Sap. The springs or impulses of affection; what is the figure of 
speech ? 


40 


SILAS MARNER. 


which he held as his most precious utensil among 
the very few conveniences he had granted himself. 
It had been his companion for twelve years, always 
standing on the same spot, always lending its 
6 handle to him in the early morning, so that its 
form had an expression for him of willing helpful- 
ness, and the impress of its handle on his palm 
gave a satisfaction mingled with that of having the 
fresh, clear water. 

10 One day, as he was returning from the well, he 
stumbled against the step of the stile, and his 
brown pot, falling with force against the stones 
that overarched the ditch below him, was broken 
in three pieces. Silas picked up the pieces and 
15 carried them home with grief in his heart. The 
brown pot could never be of use to him any more, 
but he stuck the bits together and propped the 
ruin in its old place for a memorial. 

This is the history of Silas Marner until the 
20 fifteenth year after he came to Raveloe. The 
livelong day he sat in his loom, his ear filled with 
its monotony, his eyes bent close down on the 
slow growth of sameness in the brownish web, his 
muscles moving with such even repetition that 
25 their pause seemed almost as much a constraint as 
the holding of his breath. But at night came his 
revelry ; at night he closed his shutters, and made 
fast his doors, and drew forth his gold. 

Long ago the heap of coins had become too 
30 large for the iron pot to hold them, and he had 
made for them two thick leather bags, which 
wasted no room in their resting-place, but lent 
themselves flexibly to every corner. How the 
guineas shone as they came pouring out of the 

23. Brownish web. Because it had not yet been bleached. 


SILAS MARNER. 


41 


dark leather mouths ! The silver bore no large 
proportion in amount to the gold, because the long 
pieces of linen which formed his chief work were 
always partly paid for in gold, and out of the silver 
he supplied his own bodily wants, choosing always 5 
the shillings and sixpences to spend in this way. 

He loved the guineas best, but he would not 
change the silver — the crowns and half-crowns 
that were his own earnings, begotten by his labor ; 
he loved them all. He spread them out in heaps 10 
and bathed his hands in them ; then he counted 
them and set them up in regular piles, and felt 
their rounded outline between his thumb and 
fingers, and thought fondly of the guineas that 
were only half earned by the work in his loom, as is 
if they had been unborn children — thought of 
the guineas that were coming slowly through the 
coming years, through all his life, which spread far 
away before him, the end quite hidden by count- 
less days of weaving. 20 

No wonder his thoughts were still with his loom 
and his money when he made his journeys through 
the fields and the lanes to fetch and carry home 
his work, so that his steps never wandered to the 
hedge-banks and the lane-side in search of the 26 
once familiar herbs : these too belonged to the 
past, from which his life had shrunk away, like a 
rivulet that has sunk far down from the grassy 
fringe of its old breadth into a little shivering 
thread, that cuts a groove for itself in the barren 3o 
sand. 

But about the Christmas of that fifteenth year, 
a second great change came over Marner’s life, 
and his history became blent in a singular manner 
with the life of his neighbors. 35 


42 


SILAS MARNER. 


CHAPTER III. 

The greatest man in Raveloe was Squire Cass, 
who lived in the large red house with the hand- 
some flight of stone steps in front and the high 
stables behind it, nearly opposite the church. He 
6 was only one among several landed parishioners, 
but he alone was honored with the title of Squire ; 
for though Mr. Osgood’s family was also under- 
stood to be of timeless origin — the Raveloe imag- 
ination having never ventured back to that fearful 
10 blank when there were no Osgoods — still, he 
merely owned the farm he occupied ; whereas 
Squire Cass had a tenant or two, who complained 
of the game to him quite as if he had been a lord. 

It was still that glorious war-time which was felt 
16 to be a peculiar favor of Providence towards the 
landed interest, and the fall of prices had not yet 
come to carry the race of small squires and yeo- 
men down that road to ruin for which extravagant 
habits and bad husbandry were plentifully annoint- 
20 ing their wheels. 

I am speaking now in relation to Raveloe and 
the parishes that resembled it ; for our old-fashioned 
country life had many different aspects, as all life 
must have when it is spread over a various surface, 
25 and breathed on variously by multitudinous cur- 

5. Landed parishioners. Owners of land in the parish or township, 

13. Game. A reference to the custom of preserving game on large 
estates for purposes of shooting. Severe penalties attach to the laws 
against killing or otherwise molesting the game. 

16 Fall of prices. This took place after the Battle of Waterloo 
that ended the war with France. 

17. Yeomen. Farmers who owned their own estates and were not 
tenants. Originally the yeoman was one holding free land, who was 
thus qualified to serve on juries, in the army, etc., in distinction from the 
serf, who was bound to the soil. 


SILAS MARNER. 


43 


rents, fron. .he winds of heaven to the thoughts of 
men, which are forever moving and crossing each 
other with incalculable results. 

Raveloe lay low among the bushy trees and the 
rutted lanes, aloof from the currents of industrial s 
energy and Puritan earnestness : the rich ate and 
drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things 
that ran mysteriously in respectable families, and 
the poor thought that the rich were entirely in the 
right of it to lead a jolly life ; besides, their feasting lo 
caused a multiplication of orts, which were the 
heirlooms of the poor. 

Betty Jay scented the boiling of Squire Cass’s 
hams, but her longing was arrested by the unctuous 
liquor in which they were boiled ; and when the is 
seasons brought round the great merry-makings, 
they were regarded on all hands as a fine thing for 
the poor. For the Raveloe feasts were like the 
rounds of beef and the barrels of ale — they were 
on a large scale, and lasted a good while, especi-20 
ally in the winter-time. 

After ladies had packed up their best gowns and 
top-knots in bandboxes, and had incurred the risk 
of fording streams on pillions with the precious 
burden in rainy or snowy weather, when there was 25 
no knowing how high the water would rise, it was 
not to be supposed that they looked forward to a 
brief pleasure. On this ground it was always con- 

6. Pur tan earnestness- The Non -conformist sects were most 
numerous in the large manufacturing towns, like Manchester and Bir- 
mingham 

7. Gout and apoplexy. Diseases which generally attack those who 
are self indulgent in the matter of food and drink. 

II. Orts. Scraps from the feast. 

23. Top-knots. It was the universal custom to wear highly adorned 
caps. 

24. Pillions. Cushions placed behind the saddle of a horse for a lady. 


44 


SILAS MARNER. 


trived in the dark seasons, when there was little 
work to be done, and the hours were long, that 
several neighbors should keep open house in 
succession. 

6 So soon as Squire Cass’s standing dishes dimin- 
ished in plenty and freshness, his guests had noth- 
ing to do but to walk a little higher up the village 
to Mr. Osgood’s, at the Orchards, and they found 
hams and chines uncut, pork-pies with the scent 
10 of the fire in them, spun butter in all its freshness 
— everything, in fact, that appetites at leisure 
could desire, in perhaps greater perfection, though 
not in greater abundance, than at Squire Cass’s. 

For the Squire’s wife had died long ago, and the 
16 Red House was without that presence of the wife 
and mother which is the fountain of wholesome 
love and fear in parlor and kitchen ; and this 
helped to account not only for there being more 
profusion than finished excellence in the holiday 
20 provisions, but also for the frequency with which 
the proud Squire condescended to preside in the 
parlor of the Rainbow rather than under the 
shadow of his own dark wainscot; perhaps, also, 
for the fact that his sons had turned out rather ill. 

26 Raveloe was not a place where moral censure 
was severe, but it w^as thought a weakness in the 
Squire that he had kept all his sons at home in 
idleness ; and though some license was to be 
allowed to young men whose fathers could afford 
80 it, people shook their heads at the courses of the 
second son, Dunstan, commonly called Dunsey 
Cass, whose taste for swapping and betting might 

9. Chines. Meat upon the backbones of animals. 

23. Wainscot. Panellings upon the walls of rooms, usually made of 
some dark wood. 


SILAS MARNER. 


45 


turn out to be a sowing of something worse than 
wild oats. 

To be sure, the neighbors said, it was no matter 
what became of Dunsey — a spiteful, jeering fellow, 
who seemed to enjoy his drink the more when 6 
other people went dry — always provided that his 
doings did not bring trouble on a family like Squire 
Cass’s with a monument in the church, and tank- 
ards older than King George. But it would be a 
thousand pities if Mr. Godfrey, the eldest, a fine, lo 
open-faced, good-natured young man who was to 
come into the land some day, should take to going 
along the same road with his brother, as he had 
seemed to do of late. If he went on in that way, 
he would lose Miss Nancy Lammeter; for it wasi^ 
well known that she had looked very shyly on him 
ever since last Whitsuntide twelvemonth, when 
there was so much talk about his being away from 
home days and days together. There was some- 
thing wrong, more than common — that was quite •-«) 
clear; for Mr. Godfrey didn’t look half so fresh- 
colored and open as he used to do. 

one time everybody was saying. What a hand- 
some couple he and Miss Nancy Lammeter would 
make ! and if she could come to be mistress at the 
Red House, there would be a fine change, for the 
Lammeters had been brought up in that way, that 
they never suffered a pinch of salt to be wasted, 
and yet everybody in their household had of the 

8. Monument in the church. Most English churches contain such 
memorials of the important families of the parish. 

8. Tankards. Pewter or silver drinking cups. 

9. King George King George the Third who reigned from 1760 to 
1820 

17. Twelvemonth. Twelve months ago last Whitsunday; an Eng- 
lish idiom. 


46 


SILAS MARKER. 


best, according to his place. Such a daughter-in- 
law would be a saving to the old Squire, if she 
never brought a penny to her fortune ; for it was 
to be feared that, notwithstanding his incomings, 
5 there were more holes in his pocket than the one 
where he put his own hand in. But if Mr. Godfrey 
didn’t turn over a new leaf, he might say ‘‘Good- 
bye ” to Miss Nancy Lammeter. 

It was the once hopeful Godfrey who was stand- 
loing, with his hands in his side-pockets and his 
back to the fire, in the dark wainscoted parlor, 
one late November afternoon in that fifteenth year 
of Silas Marner’s life at Raveloe. The fading gray 
light fell dimly* on the walls decorated with guns, 
15 whips, and foxes* brushes, on coats and hats flung 
on the chairs, on tankards sending forth a scent of 
fiat ale, and on a half-choked fire, with pipes 
propped up in the chimney-corners : signs of a 
domestic life destitute of any hallowing charm, with 
20 which the look of gloomy vexation on Godfrey’s 
blond face was in sad accordance. He seemed 
to be waiting and listening for some one’s ap- 
proach, and presently the sound of a heavy step, 
with an accompanying whistle, was heard across 
25 the large, empty entrance-hall. 

The door opened, and a thick-set, heavy-looking 
young man entered, with the flushed face and the 
gratuitously elated bearing which mark the first 
stage of intoxication. It was Dunsey, and at the 
30 sight of him Godfrey’s face parted with some of its 
gloom to take on the more active expression of 
hatred. The handsome brown spaniel that lay on 

3. Penny to. That is “ for.” 

15. Foxes’ brushes. Bushy tails. 

17. Flat. Stale. 


SILAS MARNER. 


47 


the hearth retreated under the chair in the chim- 
ney-corner. 

‘‘Well, Master Godfrey, what do you want with 
me?’’ said Dunsey in a mocking tone. “You’re 
my elders and betters, you know ; I was obliged to 5 
come when you sent for me.” 

“Why, this is what I want — and just shake 
yourself sober and listen, will you?” said Godfrey, 
savagely. He had himself been drinking more 
than was good for him, trying to turn his gloom lo 
into uncalculating anger. “ I want to tell you, I 
must hand over that rent of Fowler’s to the Squire, 
or else tell him I gave it you ; for he’s threatening 
to distrain for it, and it’ll all be out soon, whether 
I tell him or not. He said, just now, before he^* 
went out, he should send word to Cox to distrain, 
if Fowler didn’t come and pay up his arrears this 
week. The Squire’s short o’ cash, and in no 
humor to stand any nonsense ; and you know what 
he threatened, if ever he found you making away 20 
with his money again. So, see and get the money, 
and pretty quickly, will you ? ” 

“ Oh ! ” said Dunsey, sneeringly, coming nearer 
to his brother and looking in his face. “ Suppose, 
now, you get the money yourself, and save me the 26 
trouble, eh? Since you was so kind as to hand it 
over to me, you’ll not refuse me the kindness to 
pay it back for me : it was your brotherly love 
made you do it, you know.” 

Godfrey bit his lips and clenched his fist. ^ 

5. Elders and betters. A part of the answer to the question, 

“ What is thy duty towards thy neighbor? ” in the catechism of tne Eng- 
lish church, reads, “To order myself lowly and reverently to all my 
elders and betters " 

14. Distrain. . In legal terminology, to take possession of property on 
account of unpaid rent. 

16. Arrears. Unpaid rent. 


48 


SILAS MARL'ER. 


Don’t come near me with that look, else I’ll 
knock you down.” 

Oh no, you won’t,” said Dunsey, turning away 
on his heel, however. Because I’m such a good- 
5natured brother, you know. I might get you 
turned out of* house and home, and cut off with 
a shilling any day. I might tell the Squire how his 
handsome son was married to that nice young 
woman, Molly Barren, and was very unhappy be- 
10 cause he couldn’t live with his drunken wife, and 
I should slip into your place as comfortable as 
could be. But you see, I don’t do it- — I’m so 
easy and good-natured. You’ll take any trouble 
for me. You’ll get the hundred pounds for me — 
16 1 know you will.” 

‘‘How can I get the money?” said Godfrey, 
quivering. “ I haven’t a shilling to bless myself 
with. i\nd it’s a lie that you’d slip into my place : 
you’d get yourself turned out, too, that’s all. For 
20 if you begin telling tales. I’ll follow. Bob’s my 
father’s favorite, you know that very well. He’d 
only think himself well rid of you.” 

“ Never mind,” said Dunsey, nodding his head 
sideways as he looked out of the window. It ’ud 
26 be very pleasant to me to go in your company — 
you’re such a handsome brother, and we’ve always 
been so fond of quarrelling with one another, I 
shouldn’t know what to do without you. But 
you’d like better for us both to stay at home to- 
30 gather; I know you would. So you’ll manage to 
get that little sum o’ money, and I’ll bid you good- 
bye, though I’m sorry to part.” 

Dunstan was moving off, but Godfrey rushed after 
him and seized him by the arm, saying with an oath : 

24. *Ud. Abbreviated form of “ would.'* 


SILAS MARNER. 


49 


I tell you I have no money : I can get no 
money.” 

Borrow of old Kimble.” 

I tell you, he won’t lend me any more, and I 
shan't ask him.” 5 

^^VVell, then, sell Wildfire.” 

Yes, that’s easy talking. I must have the 
money directly.” 

‘Well, you’ve only got to ride him to the hunt 
to-morrow. There’ll be Bryce and Keating there, 10 
for sure. You’ll get more bids than one.” 

“ I daresay, and get back home at eight o’clock, 
splashed up to the chin. I’m going to Mrs. 
Osgood’s birthday dance.” 

“ Oho ! ” said Dunsey, turning his head on one is 
side, and trying to speak in a small, mincing tieble. 
“And there’s sweet Miss Nancy coming ; and we 
shall dance with her, and promise never to be 
naughty again, and be taken into favor, and ” — 

“Hold your tongue about Miss Nancy, you 20 
fool,” said Godfrey, turning red, “ else I’ll throttle 
you.” 

“What for?” said Dunsey, still in an artificial 
tone, but taking a whip from the table and beat- 
ing the butt-end of it on his palm. “You’ve a 25 
very good chance. I’d advise you to creep up her 
sleeve again : it ’ud be saving time, if Mollie should 
happen to take a drop too much laudanum some 
day, and make a widower of you. Miss Nancy 
wouldn’t mind being a second, if she didn’t know 3 « 
it. And you’ve got a good-natured brother, who’ll 
keep your secret well, because you’ll be so very 
obliging to him.” 

9. Hunt Fox hunting is a common and favorite sport in England. 

26. Creep up her sleeve. To ingratiate oneself in her favor. 


50 


SILAS MARNER. 


tell you what it is,” said Godfrey, quivering, 
and pale again, my patience is pretty near at an 
end. If you’d a little more sharpness in you, you 
might know that you may urge a man a bit too far, 

5 and make one leap as easy as another. I don’t 
know but what it is so now : I may as well tell 
the Squire everything myself — I should get you 
off my back, if I got nothing else. And, after all, 
he’ll know sometime. She’s been threatening to 
10 come herself and tell him. So, don’t flatter your- 
self that your secrecy’s worth any price you choose 
to ask. You drain me of money till I have noth- 
ing to pacify her with, and she’ll do as she threat- 
ens some day. It’s all one. I’ll tell my father 
16 everything myself, and you may go to the devil.” 

Dunsey perceived that he had overshot his mark, 
and that there was a point at which even the hesi- 
tating Godfrey might be driven into decision. But 
he said, with an air of unconcern : 

20 As you please ; but I’ll have a draught of ale 
first.” And ringing the bell, he threw himself across 
two chairs, and began to rap the window-seat with 
the handle of his whip. 

Godfrey stood still, with his back to the fire, 
26 uneasily moving his fingers among the contents of 
his side-pockets, and looking at the floor. That 
big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal 
courage, but helped him to no decision when the 
dangers to be braved were such as could neither 
30 be knocked down nor throttled. His natural irreso- 
lution and moral cowardice were exaggerated by a 
position in which dreaded consequences seemed 
to press equally on all sides, and his irritation had 
no sooner provoked him to defy Dunstan and anti- 
s^cipate all possible betrayals, than the miseries he 


SILAS MARNER. 5 I 

must bring on himself by such a step seemed more 
unendurable to him than the present evil. The 
results of confession were not contingent, they were 
certain ; whereas betrayal was not certain. From 
the near vision of that certainty he fell back on 
suspense and vacillation with a sense of repose. 

The disinherited son of a small squire, equally 
disinclined to dig and to beg, was almost as helpless 
as an uprooted tree, which, by the favor of earth 
and sky, has grown to a handsome bulk on the spot 
where it first shot upward. Perhaps it would have 
been possible to think of digging with some cheer- 
fulness if Nancy Lam meter were to be won on 
those terms ; but, since he must irrevocably lose 
her as well as the inheritance, and must break every 
tie but the one that degraded him and left him 
without motive for trying to recover his better self, 
he could imagine no future for himself on the other 
side of confession but that of ’listing for a 
soldier” — the most desperate step, short of suicide, 
in the eyes of respectable families. 

No ! he would rather trust to casualties than to 
his own resolve — rather go on sitting at the feast, 
and sipping the wine he loved, though with the 
sword hanging over him and terror in his heart, 
than rush away into the cold darkness where there 
was no pleasure left. The utmost concession to 
Dunstan about the horse began to seem easy, com- 
pared with the fulfilment of his own threat. But 
his pride would not let him recommence the conver- 
sation otherwise than by continuing the quarrel. 
Dunstan was waiting for this, and took his ale in 
shorter draughts than usual. 

3. Contingent. Did not depend on attendant circumstances, but 
would follow whatever the conditions might be. 

19. ’Listing. Enliisting. 


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SILAS MARNE R. 


‘ It’s just like you,” Godfrey burst out, in a bitter 
tone, to talk about my selling Wildfire in that cool 
way — the last thing I’ve got to call my own, and 
the best bit of horse-flesh I ever had in my life. 

^ And if you’d got a spark of pride in you, you’d be 
ashamed to see the stables emptied, and every- 
body sneering about it. But it’s my belief you’d 
sell yourself, if it was only for the pleasure of 
making somebody feel he’d got a bad bargain.” 

“Ay, ay,” said Dunstan, very placably, you do 
me justice, I see. You know I’m a jewel for ’tic- 
ing people into bargains. For which reason I 
advise you to let me sell Wildfire. I’d ride him 
to the hunt to-morrow for you, with pleasure. I 
15 shouldn’t look so handsome as you in the saddle, 
but it’s the horse they’ll bid for, and not the 
rider.” 

‘‘ Yes, I daresay — trust my horse to you ! ” 

‘‘As you please,” said Dunstan, rapping the 
20 window-seat again with an air of great unconcern. 
It’s you have got to pay Fowler’s money; its none 
of my business. You received the money from 
him when you went to Bramcote, and you told the 
Squire it wasn’t paid. I’d nothing to do with that ; 
25 you chose to be so obliging as to give it to me, 
that was all. If you don’t want to pay the money, 
let it alone ; it’s all one to me. * But I was willing 
to accommodate you by undertaking to sell the 
horse, seeing it’s not convenient to you to go so 
30 far to-morrow.” 

Godfrey was silent for some moments. He 
would have liked to spring on Dunstan, wrench 
the whip from his hand, and flog him to within an 
inch of his life ; and no bodily fear could have 
^deterred him ; but he was mastered by another sort 


SILAS MARNER. 


53 


of fear, which was fed by feelings stronger even 
than his resentment. When he spoke again it was 
in a half conciliatory tone. 

^‘Well, you mean no nonsense about the horse, 
eh? You’ll sell him all fair, and hand over the 6 
money? If you don’t, you know, everything ’ull 
go to smash, for I’ve got nothing else to trust to. 
And you’ll have less pleasure in pulling the house 
over my head, when your own skull’s to be broken 
too.” 10 

‘‘Ay, ay,” said Dunstan, rising ; “ all right. I 
thought you’d come round. I’m the fellow to 
bring old Bryce up to the scratch. I’ll get you a 
hundred and twenty for him, if I get you a penny.” 

“ But it’ll perhaps rain cats and dogs to-morrow, is 
as it did yesterday, and then you can’t go,” said 
Godfrey, hardly knowing whether he wished for 
that obstacle or not. 

“Not //,” said Dunstan. “I’m always lucky in 
my weather. It might rain if you wanted to go^o 
yourself. You never hold trumps you know — I 
always do. You’ve got the beauty, you see, and 
I’ve got the luck, so you must keep me for your 
crooked sixpence ; you’ll ne-vti get along without 
me.” 26 

“ Confound you, hold your tongue ! ” said God- 
frey, impetuously. “And take care to keep sober 
to-morrow, else you’ll get pitched on your head 
coming home, and Wildfire might be the worse 
for it.” 

“ Make your tender heart easy,” said Dunstan, 

14. Hundred and twenty. That is, one hundred and twenty pounds, 
or about six hundred dollars. 

21. Trumps. The suit at cards that will take any other suit. 

24. Crooked sixpence. A pocket-piece carried for luck. 


54 


SILAS MARNER. 


opening the door. ‘‘You never knew me to see 
double when I’d got a bargain to make ; it 'ud 
spoil the fun. Besides, whenever I fall, I’m war- 
ranted to fall on my legs.” 

5 With that, Dunstan slammed the door behind 
him, and le't Godfrey to that bitter rumination 
on his personal circumstances which was now un- 
broken from day to day save by the excitement of 
sporting, drinking, card-playing, or the rarer and 
10 less oblivious pleasure of seeing Miss Nancy Lam- 
meter. The subtle and varied pains springing 
from the higher sensibility that accompanies higher 
culture, are perhaps less pitiable than that dreary 
absence of impersonal enjoyment and consolation 
15 which leaves ruder minds to the perpetual urgent 
companionship of their own griefs and discontents. 

The lives of those rural forefathers, whom we 
are apt to think very prosaic figures — men whose 
only work was to ride round their land, getting 
20 heavier and heavier in their saddles, and who 
passed the rest of their days in the half-listless 
gratification of senses dulled by monotony — had 
a certain pathos in them nevertheless. Calamities 
came to them too, and their early errors carried 
25 hard consequences: perhaps the love of some 
sweet maiden, the image of purity, order, and 
calm, had opened their eyes to the vision of a life 
in which the days would not seem too long, even 
without rioting ; but the maiden was lost, and the 
30 vision passed away, and then what was left to 
them, especially when they had become too heavy 
for the hunt, or for carrying a gun over the fur- 
rows, but to drink and get merry, or to drink and 
get angry, so that they might be independent of 
35 variety, and say over again with eager emphasis 


SILAS MARNER. 


55 


the things they had said already any time that 
twelvemonth. 

Assuredly, among these flushed and dull-eyed 
men there were some whom — thanks to their 
native human kindness — even riot could never 
drive into brutality ; men who, when their cheeks 
were fresh, had felt the keen point of sorrow or 
remorse, had been pierced by the reeds they 
leaned on, or had lightly put their limbs in fetters 
from which no struggle could loose them ; and 
under these sad circumstances, common to us all, 
their thoughts could find no resting-place outside 
the ever trodden round of their own petty history. 

That, at least, was the condition of Godfrey Cass 
in this six-and-twentieth year of his life. A move- 
ment of compunction, helped by those small, inde- 
finable influences which every personal relation 
exerts on a pliant nature, had urged him into a 
secret marriage, which was a blight on his life. 

It was an ugly story of low passion, delusion, 
and waking from delusion, which needs not to be 
dragged from the privacy of Godfrey’s bitter mem- 
ory. He had long known that the delusion was 
partly due to a trap laid for him by Dunstan, who 
saw in his brother’s degrading marriage the means 
of gratifying at once his jealous hate and his 
cupidity. And if Godfrey could have felt himself 
simply a victim, the iron bit that destiny had 
put into his mouth would have chafed him less 
intolerably. If the curses he muttered half aloud 
when he was alone had had no other object than 
Dunstan’s diabolical cunning, he might have shrunk 
less from the consequences of avowal. But he had 
something else to curse — his own vicious folly, 

2. Twelvemonth. Any time during the year. 


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25 

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SILAS MARNER. 


S6 

which now seemed as mad and unaccountable to 
him as almost all our follies and vices do when 
their promptings have long passed away. 

For four years he had thought of Nancy Lam- 
6 meter, and wooed her with tacit, patient worship, 
as the woman who made him think of the future 
with joy : she would be his wife, and would make 
home lovely to him, as his father’s home had 
never been ; and it would be easy, when she was 
10 always near, to shake off those foolish habits that 
were no pleasures, but only a feverish way of 
annulling vacancy. 

Godfrey’s was an essentially domestic nature, 
bred up in a home where the hearth had no smiles, 
15 and where the daily habits were not chastened by 
the presence of household order. His easy dis- 
position made him fall in unresistingly with the 
family courses, but the need of some tender, per- 
manent affection, the longing for some influence 
20 that would make the good he preferred easy to 
pursue, caused the neatness, purity, and liberal 
orderliness of the Lammeter household, sunned 
by the smile of Nancy, to seem like those fresh, 
bright hours of the morning when temptations go 
25 to sleep and leave the ear open to the voice of 
the good angel, inviting to industry, sobriety, and 
peace. 

And yet the hope of this paradise had not been 
enough to save him from a course which shut him 
30 out of it forever. Instead of keeping fast hold of 
the strong silken rope by which Nancy would have 
drawn him safe to the green banks where it was 
easy to step firmly, he had let himself be dragged 
back into mud and slime, in which it was useless 
85 to struggle. He had made ties for himself which 


SILAS MARNER. 


57 


robbed him of all wholesome motive and were a 
constant exasperation. 

Still, there was one position worse than the 
present : it was the position he would be in when 
the ugly secret was disclosed ; and the desire that s 
continually triumphed o\er every other was that of 
warding off the evil day, when he would have to 
bear the consequences of his father’s violent resent- 
ment for the wound inflicted on his family pride — 
would have, perhaps, to turn his back on that^o 
hereditary ease and dignity which, after all, was a 
sort of reason for living, and would carry with him 
the certainty that he was banished forever from 
the sight and esteem of Nancy Lammeter. 

The longer the interval, the more chance there 
was of deliverance from some, at least, of the 
hateful consequences to which he had sold him- 
self ; the more opportunities remained for him to 
snatch the strange gratification of seeing Nancy, 
and gathering some faint indications of her linger- ^ 
ing regard. Towards this gratification he was 
impelled, fitfully, every now and then, after having 
passed weeks in which he had avoided her as the 
far-off, bright-winged prize that only made him 
spring forward and find his chain all the morels 
galling. 

One of those fits of yearning was on him now, 
and it would have been strong enough to have 
persuaded him to trust Wildfire to Dunstan rather 
than disappoint the yearning, even if he had not®^ 
had another reason for his disinclination towards 
the morrow’s hunt. That other reason was the 
fact that the morning’s meet was near Batherley, 
the market-town where the unhappy woman lived, 
whose image became more odious to him every 36 


58 


SILAS MARNER. 


day ; and to his thought the whole vicinage was 
haunted by her. 

The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong- 
doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature ; and 
6 the good-humored, affectionate-hearted Godfrey 
Cass was fast becoming a bitter man, visited by 
cruel wishes, that seemed to enter, and depart, and 
enter again, like demons who had found in him a 
ready-garnished home. 

What was he to do this evening to pass the time ? 
He might as well go to the Rainbow, and hear the 
talk about the cock-fighting : everybody was there, 
and what else was there to be done ? Though, for 
his own part, he did not care a button for cock- 
15 fighting. Snuff, the brown spaniel, who had placed 
herself in front of him, and had been watching him 
for some time, now jumped up in impatience for 
the expected caress. But Godfrey thrust her away 
without looking at her, and left the room, followed 
20 humbly by the unresenting Snuff — perhaps be- 
cause she saw no other career open to her. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Dunstan Cass, setting off in the raw morning, at 
the judiciously quiet pace of a man who is obliged 
to ride to cover on his hunter, had to take his way 
25 along the lane which, at its farther extremity, passed 
by the piece of unenclosed ground called the Stone- 
pit, where stood the cottage, once a stone-cutter’s 

I. Vicinage. The more usual expression is “ vicinity ” 

12 Cock-fighting A form of sport much indulged in at that time. 
Compare mention in Thackeray’s novels. 

24. Cover. The place where the fox-hunt sets out. It is usually 
some piece of underbrush where the fox has taken refuge, for all the fox- 
holes in the neighborhood are closed the night before a hunt. 


SILAS MARNER. 


59 


shed, now for fifteen years inhabited by Silas 
Marner. The spot looked very dreary at this 
season, with the moist trodden clay about it, and 
the red, muddy water high up in the deserted 
quarry. That was Dunstan’s first thought as he & 
approached it ; the second was, that the old fool of 
a weaver, whose loom he heard rattling already, had 
a great deal of money hidden somewhere. 

How was it that he, Dunstan Cass, who had 
often heard talk of Marner’s miserliness, had never lo 
thought of suggesting to Godfrey that he should 
frighten or persuade the old fellow into lending the 
money on the excellent security of the young 
Squire’s prospects ? The resource occurred to him 
now as so easy and agreeable, especially as Marner’s i 5 
hoard was likely to be large enough to leave Godfrey 
a handsome surplus beyond his immediate needs, 
and enable him to accommodate his faithful brother, 
that he had almost turned the horse’s head towards 
home again. 20 

Godfrey would be ready enough to accept the 
suggestion : he would snatch eagerly at a plan that 
might save him from parting with Wildfire. But 
when Dustan’s meditation reached this point, the 
inclination to go on grew strong and prevailed. He 25 
didn’t want to give Godfrey that pleasure : he pre- 
ferred that Master Godfrey should be vexed. 
Moreover, Dunstan enjoyed the self-important con- 
sciousness of having a horse to sell, and the oppor- 
tunity of driving a bargain, swaggering, and possibly 30 
taking somebody in. He might have all the satis- 
faction attendant on selling his brother’s horse, and 
not the less have the further satisfaction of setting 
Godfrey to borrow Marner’s money. So he rode 
on to cover. 


36 


6o 


SILAS MARNER. 


Bryce and Keating were there, as Dunstan was 
quite sure they would be — he was such a lucky 
fellow. 

Heyday ! ” said Bryce, who had long had his 
5 eye on Wildfire, you’re on your brother’s horse 
to-day: how’s that?” 

Oh, I’ve swopped with him,” said Dunstan, 
whose delight in lying, grandly independent of 
utility, was not to be diminished by the likelihood 
10 that his hearer would not believe him — Wildfire’s 
mine now.” 

‘‘ What ! has he swopped with you for that big- 
boned hack of yours?” said Bryce, quite aware that 
he should get another lie in answer. 

15 <<Oh, there was a little account between us,” 

said Dunsey, carelessly, and Wildfire made it 
even. I accommodated him by taking the horse, 
though it was against my will, for I’d got an itch 
for a mare o’ Jortin’s — as rare a bit o’ blood as 
20 ever you threw your leg across. But I shall keep 
Wildfire, now I’ve got him, though I’d a bid of a 
hundred and fifty for him the other day, from a man 
over at Flitton — he’s buying for Lord Cromleck — 
a fellow with a cast in his eye, and a green waist- 
26 coat. But I mean to stick to Wildfire ; I sha’n’t get 
a better at a fence in a hurry. The mare’s got more 
blood, but she’s a bit too weak in the hind-quarters.” 

Bryce of course divined that Dunstan wanted to 
sell the horse, and Dunstan knew that he divined it 
30 (horse- dealing is only one of many human trans- 
actions carried on in this ingenious manner) ; and 
they both considered that the bargain was in its 
first stage, when Bryce replied, ironically : 

24. Cast. Squint. 

26. Fence. At leaping a fence. 


SILAS MARXER. 


6i 

I wonder at that now ; I wonder you mean to 
keep him ; for I never heard of a man who didn’t 
want to sell his horse getting a bid of half as much 
again as the horse was worth. You’ll be lucky if 
you get a hundred.” 

Keating rode up now, and the transaction became 
more complicated. It ended in the purchase of 
the horse by Bryce for a hundred and twenty, to be 
paid on the delivery of Wildfire, safe and sound, at 
the Batherley stables. It did occur to Dunsey 
that it might be wise for him to give up the day’s 
hunting, proceed at once to Batherley, and, having 
waited for Bryce’s return, hire a horse to carry him 
home with the money in his pocket. But the 
inclination for a run, encouraged by confidence in 
his luck, and by a draught of brandy from his 
pocket-pistol at the conclusion of the bargain, was 
not easy to overcome, especially with a horse under 
him that would take the fences to the admiration of 
the field. 

Dunstan, however, took one fence too many, and 
got his horse pierced with a hedge-stake. His own 
ill-favored person, which was quite unmarketable, 
escaped without injury ; but poor Wildfire, uncon- 
scious of his price, turned on his flank and painfully 
panted his last. 

It happened that Dunstan, a short time before, 
having had to get down to arrange his stirrup, had 
muttered a good many curses at this interruption, 
which had thrown him in the rear of the hunt near 

15. Run The “run” is the chase for the fox after he has been 
driven from cover. 

17. Pocket-pistol. A pocket flask. 

20. Field. The hunters who compose the day’s hunt. 

22. Hedge-stake. This is explained later on as “a hedge with 
stakes in it, atop of a bank with a ditch before it.” 


5 

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20 

25 

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62 


SILAS -MARNER. 


the moment of glory, and under this exasperation 
had taken the fences more blindly. He would soon 
have been up with the hounds again, when the fatal 
accident happened ; and hence he was between 
b eager riders in advance, not troubling themselves 
about what happened behind them, and far-off 
stragglers, who were as likely as not to pass quite 
aloof from the line of road in which Wildfire had 
fallen. 

10 Dunstan, whose nature it was to care more for 
immediate annoyances than for remote conse- 
quences, no sooner recovered his legs, and saw that 
it was all over with Wildfire, than he felt a satisfac- 
tion at the absence of witnesses to a position which 
15 no swaggering could make enviable. Reinforcing 
himself, after his shake, with a little brandy and 
much swearing, he walked as fast as he could to a 
coppice on his right hand, through which it 
occurred to him that he could make his way to 
20 Batherley without danger of encountering any 
member of the hunt. 

His first intention was to hire a horse there and 
ride home forthwith, for to walk many miles with- 
out a gun in his hand and along an ordinary road, 
2') was as much out of the question to him as to other 
spirited young men of his kind. He did not much 
mind about taking the bad news to Godfrey, for he 
had to offer him at the same time the resource of 
Marner’s money ; and if Godfrey kicked, as he 
30 always did, at the notion of making a fresh debt 
from which he himself got the smallest share of 
advantage, why, he wouldn’t kick long : Dunstan 
felt sure he could worry Godfrey into anything. 

The idea of Marner’s money kept growing in 

i8. Coppice. A thick growth of underbrush. 


SILAS MARNER. 


63 


vividness, now the want of it had become immedi- 
ate ; the prospect of having to make his appear- 
ance with the muddy boots of a pedestrian at 
Batherley, and to encounter the grinning queries of 
stablemen, stood unpleasantly in the way of his im- 
patience to be back at Raveloe and carry out his 
felicitous plan ; and a casual visitation of his waist- 
coat pocket, as he was ruminating, awakened his 
memory to the fact that the two or three small 
coins his fore-finger encountered there, were of 
too pale a color to cover that small debt, without 
payment of which the stable-keeper had declared 
he would never do any more business with Dunsey 
Cass. 

After all, according to the direction in which the 
run had brought him, he was not so very much 
farther from home than he was from Batherley; but 
Dunsey, not being remarkable for clearness of head, 
was only led to this conclusion by the gradual per- 
ception that there were other reasons for choosing 
the unprecedented course of walking home. 

It was now nearly four o’clock, and a mist was 
gathering : the sooner he got into the road the 
better. He remembered having crossed the road 
and seen the finger-post only a little while before 
Wildfire broke down ; so, buttoning his coat, twist- 
ing the lash of his hunting-whip compactly round 
the handle, and rapping the tops of his boots with 
a self-possessed air, as if to assure himself that he 
was not at all taken by surprise, he set off with the 
sense that he was undertaking a remarkable feat of 
bodily exertion, which somehow and at some time 
he should be able to dress up and magnify to the 
admiration of a select circle at the Rainbow. 

When a young gentleman like Dunsey is reduced 


5 

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25 

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64 


SILAS MARKER. 


to SO exceptional a mode of locomotion as walking, 
a whip in his hand is a desirable corrective to a too 
bewildering dreamy sense of unwontedness in his 
position ; and Dunstan, as he went along through 
6 the gathering mist, was always rapping his whip 
somewhere. It was Godfrey’s whip, which he had 
chosen to take without leave because it had a gold 
handle ; of course no one could see, when Dunstan 
held it, that the name Godfrey Cass was cut in 
10 deep letters on that gold handle — they could only 
see that it was a very handsome whip. Dunsey was 
not without fear that he might meet some acquaint- 
ance in whose eyes he would cut a pitiable figure, 
for mist is no screen when people get close to each 
15 other; but when he at last found himself in the 
well-known Raveloe lanes without having met a 
soul, he silently remarked that that was part of his 
usual good luck. But now the mist, helped by the 
evening darkness, was more of a screen than he 
20 desired, for it hid the ruts into which his feet were 
liable to slip — hid everything, so that he had to 
guide his steps by dragging his whip along the low 
bushes in advance of the hedgerow. He must soon, 
he thought, be getting near the opening at the 
26 Stone-pits : he should find it out by the break in 
the hedgerow. He found it out, howevei, by 
another circumstance which he had not expected 
— namely, by certain gleams of light, which he 
presently guessed to proceed from Silas Marner’s 
30 cottage. 

That cottage and the money hidden within it had 
been in his mind continually during his walk, and 
he had been imagining ways of cajoling and tempt- 
ing the weaver to part with the immediate possession 
his money for the sake of receiving interest. 


SILAS MARKER, 


65 


Dunstan felt as if there must be a little frightening 
added to the cajolery, for his own arithmetical 
convictions were not clear enough to afford him 
any forcible demonstration as to the advantages of 
interest ; and as for security, he regarded it vaguely 6 
as a means of cheating a man by making him believe 
that he would be paid. Altogether, the operation 
on the miser’s mind was a task that Godfrey would 
be sure to hand over to his more daring and cun- 
ning brother : Dunstan had made up his mind to 
that ; and by the time he saw the light gleaming 
through the chinks of Marner’s shutters, the idea of 
a dialogue with the weaver had become so familiar 
to him, that it occurred to him as quite a natural 
thing to make the acquaintance forthwith. 

There might be several conveniences attending 
this course : the weaver had possibly got a lantern, 
and Dunstan was tired of feeling his way. He was 
still nearly three-quarters of a mile from home, and 
the lane was becoming unpleasantly slippery, for 20 
the mist was passing into rain. He turned up the 
bank, not without some fear lest he might miss the 
right way, since he was not certain whether the 
light were in front or on the side of the cottage. 
But he felt the ground before him cautiously with 26 
his whip handle, and at last arrived safely at the 
door. He knocked loudly, rather enjoying the idea 
that the old fellow would be frightened at the sudden 
noise. He heard no movement in reply : all was 
silence in the cottage. Was the weaver gone to so 
bed, then ? If so, why had he left a light ? That 
was a strange forgetfulness in a miser. 

Dunstan knocked still more loudly, and, without 

5. Security. Property given as pledge in payment for a debt, which 
falls to the creditor in case of failure to pay. 


66 


SILAS MARKER. 


pausing for a reply, pushed his fingers through the 
latch-hole, intending to shake the door and pull the 
latch-string up and down, not doubting that the 
door was fastened. But to his surprise, at this 
5 double motion the door opened, and he found him- 
self in front of a bright fire which lit up every 
corner of the cottage — the bed, the loom, the 
three chairs, and the table — and showed him that 
Marner was not there. 

10 Nothing at that moment could be much more 
inviting to Dunsey than the bright fire on the brick 
hearth : he walked in and seated himself by it at 
once. There was something in front of the fire, 
too, that would have been inviting to a hungry man, 
15 if it had been in a different stage of cooking. It 
was a small bit of pork suspended from the kettle- 
hanger by a string passed through a large door-key, 
in a way known to primitive housekeepers unpos- 
sessed of jacks. But the pork had been hung at 
20 the farthest extremity of the hanger, apparently to 
prevent the roasting from proceeding too rapidly 
during the owner’s absence. The old staring sim- 
pleton had hot meat for his supper, then? thought 
Dunstan. People had always said he lived on 
26 mouldy bread, on purpose to check his appetite. 
But where could he be at this time, and on such an 
evening, leaving his supper in this stage of prepa- 
ration, and his door unfastened? 

Dunstan’s own recent difficulty in making his 
»oway suggested to him that the weaver had perhaps 
gone outside his cottage to fetch in fuel, or for 

3. Latch-string. A string used to move a small bar of wood or 
iron, fastened to a pivot, which secured the door. 

16. Kettle-hanger An iron bar or crane with hooks upon it sus- 
pended by one end above a fire-place, for the purpose of cooking food. 

19. Jacks. Implements for lifting the spit and turning the roasting 
meat before the fire. 


SILAS MARNER. 


67 


some such brief purpose, and had slipped into the 
Stone-Pit. That was an interesting idea to Dun- 
stan, carrying consequences of entire novelty. If 
the weaver was dead, who had a right to his 
money? Who would know where his money was 5' 
hidden ? Who would know that anybody had come 
to take it away? He went no farther into the 
subtleties of evidence : the pressing question, 
‘‘Where is the money?'’ now took such entire 
possession of him as to make him quite forget that 10 
the weaver’s death was not a certainty. A dull 
mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters a 
desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that 
the notion from which the inference started was 
purely problematic. And Dunstan’s mind was asi^ 
dull as the mind of a possible felon usually is. 

There were only three hiding-places where he 
had ever heard of cottagers’ hoards being found : 
the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. Mar- 
ner’s cottage had no thatch; and Dunstan’s first 20 
act, after a train of thought made rapid by the 
stimulus of cupidity, was to go up to the bed ; but 
while he did so, his eyes traveled eagerly over the 
floor, where the bricks, distinct in the firelight, 
were discernible under the sprinkling of sand. But 25 
not everywhere ; for thefe was one spot, and one 
only, which was quite covered with sand, and 
sand showing the marks of fingers, which had 
apparently been careful to spread it over a given 
space. It was near the treddles of the loom. 30 

In an instant Dunstan darted to that spot, swept 
away the sand with his whip, and, inserting the thin 

19. Thatch. Straw or rushes often used for the roofs of cottages. 

30. Treddles. More commonly treadles; parts of the loom worked 
by the feet. 


68 


SILAS MARNER. 


end of the hook between the bricks, found that 
they were loose. In haste he lifted up two bricks, 
and saw what he had no doubt was the object of 
his search : for what could there be but money in 
6 those two leathern bags ? And, from their weight, 
they must be filled with guineas. Dunstan felt 
round the hole, to be certain that it held no more ; 
then hastily replaced the bricks, and spread the 
sand over them. 

10 Hardly more than five minutes had passed since 
he entered the cottage, but it seemed to Dunstan 
like a long while ; and though he was without any 
distinct recognition of the possibility that Marner 
might be alive, and might re-enter the cottage at 
15 any moment, he felt an undefinable dread laying 
hold on him, as he rose to his feet with the bags in 
his hand. He would hasten out into the darkness, 
and then consider what he should do with the bags. 
He closed the door behind him immediately, that 
20 he might shut in the stream of light ; a few steps 
would be enough to carry him beyond betrayal by 
the gleams from the shutter-chinks and the latch- 
hole. The rain and darkness had got thicker, and 
he was glad of it ; though it was awkward walking 
25 with both hands filled, so that it was as much as he 
could do to grasp his whip ‘along with one of the 
bags. But when he had gone a yard or two, he 
might take his time. So he stepped forward into 
the darkness. 

CHAPTER V. 

30 When Dunstan Cass turned his back on the cot- 
tage, Silas Marner was not more than a hundred 
yards away from it, plodding along from the village 
with a sack thrown round his shoulders as an over- 


SILAS MARNER. 


69 


coat, and with a horn lantern in his hand. His 
legs were weary, but his mind was at ease, free 
from the presentiment of change. 

The sense of security more frequently springs 
from habit than from conviction, and for this reason 6 
it often subsists after such a change in the condi- 
tions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. 
The lapse of time during which a given event has 
not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly 
alleged as a reason why the event should never 10 
happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely 
the added condition which makes the event im- 
minent. A man will tell you that he has worked in 
a mine for forty years, unhurt by an accident, as a 
reason why he should apprehend no danger, though is 
the roof is beginning to sink ; and it is often 
observable, that the older a man gets, the mor^e 
difficult it is to him to retain a believing conception 
of his own death. 

This influence of habit was necessarily strong in 20 
a man whose life was so monotonous as Marner’s — 
who saw no new people and heard of no new events 
to keep alive in him the idea of the unexpected and 
the changeful ; and it explains simply enough why 
his mind could be at ease, though he had left his 2s 
house and his treasure more defenceless than usual. 

Silas was thinking with double complacency of 
his supper : first, because it would be hot and 
savory ; and secondly, because it would cost him 
nothing. For the little bit of pork was a presents© 
from that excellent housewife. Miss Priscilla Lam- 
meter, to whom he had this day carried home a 
handsome piece of linen, and it was only on 

I. Horn lantern. So named because thin pieces of horn A'ere used 
in the sides of lanterns instead of glass. 


70 


SILAS MARKER. 


occasion of a present like this, that Silas indulged 
himself with roast meat. Supper was his favorite 
meal, because it came at his time of revelry, when 
his heart warmed over his gold ; whenever he had 
5 roast meat, he always chose to have it for supper. 
But this evening, he had no sooner ingeniously 
knotted his string fast round his bit of pork, twisted 
the string according to rule over his door-key, 
passed it through the handle, and made it fest on 
10 the hanger, than he remembered that a piece of 
very fine twine was indispensable to his “ setting 
up ” a new piece of work in his loom early in the 
morning. It had slipped his memory, because, in 
coming from Mr. Lammeter’s, he had not had to 
15 pass through the village ; but to lose time by 
going on errands in the morning was out of the 
question. 

It was a nasty fog to turn out into, but there 
were things Silas loved better than his own comfort ; 
20 so, drawing his pork to the extremity of the hanger, 
and arming himself with his lantern and his old 
sack, he set out on what, in ordinary weather, 
would have been a twenty minutes’ errand. He 
could not have locked his door without undoing his 
25 well-knotted string and retarding his supper ; it was 
not worth his while to make that sacrifice. What 
thief would find his way to the Stone-pits on such a 
night as this? and why should he come on this 
particular night, when he had never come through 
30 all the fifteen years before ? These questions were 
not distinctly present in Silas’s mind ; they merely 

7. Knotted his string. That is, to make the meat revolve upon the 
spit. 

II. Setting up. Arranging the thread or yam preparatory to 
weaving. 

20. Drawing his pork, etc. That it might cook slowly. 


SILAS MARNER. 


71 


serve to represent the vaguely-felt foundation of his 
freedom from anxiety. 

He reached his door in much satisfaction that 
his errand was done : he opened it, and to his 
short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had & 
left It, except that the fire sent out a welcome in- 
crease of heat. He trod about the floor while put- 
ting by his lantern and throwing aside his hat and 
sack, so as to merge the marks of Dunstan’s feet on 
the sand in the marks of his own nailed boots. 10 
Then he moved his pork nearer to the fire, and sat 
down to the agreeable business of tending the meat 
and warming himself at the same time. 

Any one who had looked at him as the red light 
shone upon his pale face, strange, straining eyes, 
and meagre form, would perhaps have understood 
the mixture of contemptuous pity, dread and sus- 
picion with which he was regarded by his neighbors 
in Raveloe. Yet few men could be more harmless 
than poor Marner. In his truthful, simple soul, not'io 
even the growing greed and worship of gold could 
beget any vice directly injurious to others. The 
light of his faith quite put out, and his affections 
made desolate, he had clung with all the force of 
his nature to his work and his money; and like all 25 
objects to which a man devotes himself, they had 
fashioned him into correspondence with them- 
selves. His loom, as he wrought in it without 
ceasing, had in its turn wrought on him, and con- 
firmed more and more the monotonous craving for so 
its monotonous response. His gold, as he hung 
over it and saw it grow, gathered his power of lov- 
ing together into a hard isolation like its own. 

As soon as he was warm he began to think it 
would be a long while to wait till after supper be- ^ 


72 


SILAS MARNER. 


fore he drew out his guineas, and it would be 
pleasant to see them on the table before him as he 
ate his unwonted feast. For joy is the best of 
wine, and Silas’s guineas were a golden wine of 
sthat sort. 

He rose and placed his candle unsuspectingly on 
the floor near his loom, swept away the sand with- 
out noticing any change, and removed the bricks. 
The sight of the empty hole made his heart leap 
10 violently, but the belief that his gold was gone 
could not come at once — only terror, and the eager 
effort to put an end tO' the tenor. He passed his 
trembling hand all about the hole, trying to think 
it possible that his eyes had deceived him ; then he 
15 held the candle in the hole and examined it curi- 
ously, trembling more and more. At last he shook 
so violently that he let fall the candle, and lifted his 
hands to his head, trying to steady himself, that he 
might think. Had he put his gold somewhere else, 
by a sudden resolution last night, and then for- 
gotten it? 

A man falling into dark waters seeks a momen- 
tary footing even on sliding stones ; and Silas, by 
acting as if he believed in false hopes, warded off 
25 the moment of despair. He searched in every cor- 
ner, he turned his bed over, and shook it, and 
kneaded it ; he looked in his brick oven where he 
laid his sticks. When there was no other place to 
be searched, he kneeled down again and felt once 
30 more all round the hole. There was no untried 
refuge left for a moment’s shelter from the terrible 
truth. 

Yes, there was a sort of refuge which always 
comes with the prostration of thought under an 
36 overpowering passion : it was that expectation of 


SILAS MARNER. 


73 


impossibilities, that belief in contradictory images, 
which is still distinct from madness, because it is 
capable of being dissipated by the external fact. 
Silas got up from his knees trembling, and looked 
round at the table : didn’t the gold lie there after 5 
all? The table was bare. Then he turned and 
looked behind him — looked allround his dwelling, 
seeming to strain his brown eyes after some pos- 
sible appearance of the bags where he had already 
sought them in vain. He could see every object lo 
in his cottage — and his gold was not there. 

Again he put his trembling hands to his head, 
and gave a wild, ringing scream, the cry of deso- 
lation. For a few moments after, he stood motion- 
less ; but the cry had relieved him from the first i** 
maddening pressure of the truth. He turned, and 
tottered towards his loom, and got into the seat 
where he worked, instinctively seeking this as the 
strongest assurance of reality. 

And now that all the false hopes had vanished, 20 
and the first shock of certainty was passed, the 
idea of a thief began to present itself, and he enter- 
tained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught 
and made to restore the gold. The thought brought 
some new strength with it, and he started from his 25 
loom to the door. As he opened it the rain beat 
in upon him, for it was falling more and more 
heavily. 

There were no footsteps to be tracked on such a 
night — footsteps? When had the thief come? 30 
During Silas’s absence in the daytime the door had 
been locked, and there had been no marks of any 
inroad on his return by daylight. And in the 
evening, too, he said to himself, everything was the 
same as when he had left it. The sand and bricks 3 ^ 


74 


SILAS :\IARNER. 


looked as if they had not been moved. IVas it a 
thief who had taken the bags? or was it a cruel 
power that no hands could reach which had de- 
lighted in making him a second time desolate ? 

^ He shrank from this vaguer dread, and fixed his 
mind with struggling effort on the robber with 
hands, who could be reached by hands. His 
thoughts glanced at all the neighbors who had 
made any remarks, or asked any questions which 
10 he might now regard as a ground of suspicion. 
There was Jem Rodney, a known poacher, and 
otherwise disreputable : he had often met Marner 
in his journeys across the fields, and had said some- 
thing jestingly about the weaver’s money ; nay, he 
16 had once irritated Marner, by lingering at the fire 
when he called to light his pipe, instead of going 
about his business. 

Jem Rodney was the man — there was ease in 
the thought. Jem could be found and made to 
20 restore the money : Marner did not want to punish 
him, but only to get back his gold which had gone 
from him, and left his soul like a forlorn traveler on 
an unknown desert. The robber must be laid hold 
of. Marner’s ideas of legal authority were con- 
25 fused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim his 
loss ; and the great people in the village — the 
clergyman, the constable, and Squire Cass — would 
make Jem Rodney, or somebody else, deliver up 
the stolen money. He rushed out in the rain, 
80 under the stimulus of this hope, forgetting to cover 
his head, not caring to fasten his door ; for he felt 
as if he had nothing left to lose. He ran swiftly, 
till want of breath compelled him to slacken his 
pace as he was entering the village at the turning 
35 close to the Rainbow. 


SILAS MARNER. 


75 


The Rainbow, in Marner’s view, was a place of 
luxurious resort for stout and rich husbands, whose 
wives had superfluous stores of linen ; it was the 
place where he was likely to find the powers and 
dignities of Raveloe, and where he could most ft 
speedily make his loss public. He lifted the latch, 
and turned into the bright bar or kitchen on the 
right hand, where the less lofty customers of the 
house were in the habit of assembling, the parlor 
on the left being reserved for the more select society lo 
in which Squire Cass frequently enjoyed the double 
pleasure of conviviality and condescension. But 
the parlor was dark to-night, the chief personages 
who ornamented its circle being all at Mrs. Osgood’s 
birthday dance, as Godfrey Cass was. And in con- ift 
sequence of this, the party on the high-screened 
seats in the kitchen was more numerous than usual ; 
several personages, who would otherwise have been 
admitted into the parlor and enlarged the oppor- 
tunity of hectoring and condescension for their 20 
betters, being content this evening to vary their 
enjoyment by taking their spirits-and-water where 
they could themselves hector and condescend in 
company that called for beer. 


CHAPTER VI. 

The conversation, which was at a high pitch 25 
of animation when Silas approached the door of 
the Rainbow, had, as usual, been slow and inter- 
mittent when the company first assembled. The 

7. Bar. The place in an inn where liquors are sold. 

16 High-screened seats. Wooden settles with high backs and 
arms. 

20. Hectoring. A word derived from the name of Hector, greatest 
hero of the Trojans. 


76 


SILAS MARKER. 


pipes began to be puffed in a silence which had an 
air of severity ; the more important customers, who 
drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at 
each other as if a bet were depending on the first 
6 man who winked ; while the beer-drinkers, chiefly 
men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks, kept their 
eyelids down and rubbed their hands across their 
mouths, as if their draughts of beer were a funereal 
duty attended with embarrassing sadness, 

10 At last, Mr. Snell, the landlord, a man of a 
neutral disposition, accustomed to stand aloof from 
human differences as those of beings who were all 
alike in need of liquor, broke silence, by saying in 
a doubtful tone to his cousin the butcher : 

15 Some folks ’ud say that was a fine beast you 
druv in yesterday. Bob? ” 

The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man, 
was not disposed to answer rashly. He gave a few 
puffs before he spat and replied, And they 
20 wouldn’t be fur wrong, John.” 

After this feeble, delusive thaw, the silence set 
in as severely as before. 

‘‘Was it a red Durham? ” said the farrier, taking 
up the thread of discourse after the lapse of a few 
26 minutes. 

The farrier looked at the landlord, r.nd the land- 
lord looked at the butcher, as the person who must 
take the responsibility of answering. 

“ Red it was,” said the butcher, in his good- 
30 humored, husky treble — “and a Durham it was.” 

6. Fustian. A coarse cotton cloth. 

6. Smock-frocks. A loose cotton blouse worn over the coat by 
laborers. 

23. Durham. A county in nonhern England noted for its breed of 
cattle. 

23. Farrier. A veterinary surgeon; the word is derived from the 
Latin ferrnm, iron, and meant originally one who shoes a horse. 


SILAS MARNER. 


77 


Then you needn’t tell me who you bought it 
of,” said the farrier, looking round with some tri- 
umph ; I know who it is has got the red Durhams 
o’ this country-side. And she’d a white star on 
her brow, I’ll bet a penny?” The farrier leaned 
forward with his hands on his knees as he put this 
question, and his eyes twinkled knowingly. 

“Well; yes — she might,” said the butcher, 
slowly, considering that he was giving a decided 
affirmative. “ I don’t say contrairy.” 

“I know that very well,” said the farrier, throw- 
ing ‘himself backward again, and speaking defi- 
antly; “if /don’t know Mr. Lammeter’s cows, I 
should like to know who does — that’s all. And as 
for the cow you’ve bought, bargain or no bargain. 
I’ve been at the drenching of her — contradick me 
who will.” 

The farrier looked fierce, and the mild butcher’s 
conversational spirit was roused a little. 

“ I’m not for contradicking no man,” he said, 
“ I’m for peace and quietness. Some are for cut- 
ting long ribs — I’m for cutting ’em short myself ; 
but I don’t quarrel with ’em. All I say is, it’s a 
lovely carkiss — and anybody as was reasonable, it 
’ud bring tears into their eyes to look at it.” 

“ Well, it’s the cow as I drenched, whatever it is,” 
pursued the farrier, angrily ; “ and it was Mr. 
Lammeter’s cow, else you told a lie when you said 
it was^a red Durham.” 

“ I tell no lies,” said the butcher, with the same 
mild huskiness as before, “ and I contradick none 
— not if a man was to swear himself black : he’s no 
meat o’ mine, nor none o’ my bargains. All I say 

i6. Drenching. Had prescribed medicine for her. 

24. Carkiss. Carcas. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

30 


78 


SILAS MARKER. 


is, it’s a lovely carkiss. And what I say I’ll stick 
to ; but I’ll quarrel wi’ no man.” 

No,” said the farrier, with bitter sarcasm, look- 
ing at the company generally ; and p’rhaps you 
*arn’t pig-headed; and p’rhaps you didn’t say the 
cow was a red Durham ; and p’rhaps you didn’t 
say she’d got a star on her brow — stick to that, 
now you’re at it.” 

** Come, come,” said the landlord ; let the cow 
10 alone. The truth lies atween you : you’re both 
right and both wrong, as I allays say. And as for 
the cow’s being Mr. Lammeter’s, I say nothing to 
that ; but this I say, as the Rainbow’s the Rain- 
bow. And for the matter o’ that, if the talk is to 
15 be o’ the Lammeters, know the most upo’ that 
head, eh, Mr. Macey? You remember when first 
Mr. Lammeter’s father come into these parts, and 
took the Warrens?” 

Mr. Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter of 
20 which functions rheumatism had of late obliged 
him to share with a small-featured young man who 
sat opposite him, held his white head on one side, 
and twirled his thumbs with an air of complacency, 
slightly seasoned with criticism. He smiled pity- 
25ingly, in answer to the landlord’s appeal, and 
said : 

Ay, ay ; I know, I know ; but I let other folks 
talk. I’ve laid by now, and gev up to the young 

uns. Ask them as have been to school at Tarley : 

30 they’ve learnt pernouncing ; that’s come up since 
my day.” 

If you’re pointing at me, Mr. Macey,” said the 
deputy-clerk, with an air of anxious propriety, “ I’m 

i8. Warrens. Name of the farm: the custom of naming an estate of 
any size is usual in England. 


SILAS MARNER. 


79 


nowise a man to speak out ot my place. As the 
psalm says — 

‘ I know what’s right, nor only so, 

But also practise what I know.’ ” 

‘‘ Well, then, I wish you’d keep hold o’ the tune, 5 
when it’s set for you ; if you’re for prac/zVing, I 
wish you’d prac/zV<f that,” said a large, jocose-look- 
ing man, an excellent wheelwright in his week-day 
capacity, but on Sundays leader of the choir. He 
winked, as he spoke, at two of the company, who 10 
were known officially as the bassoon ” and the 

key-bugle,” in the confidence that he was ex- 
pressing the sense of the musical profession in 
Raveloe. 

Mr. Tookey, the deputy-clerk, who shared the is 
unpopularity common to deputies, turned very red, 
but replied, with careful moderation — Mr. Win- 
throp, if you’ll bring me any proof as I’m in the 
wrong, I’m not the man to say I won’t alter. But 
there’s people set up their own ears for a standard, 20 
and expect the whole choir to follow ’em. There 
may be two opinions, I hope.” 

Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey, who felt very well 
satisfied with this attack on youthful presumption ; 
‘‘you’re right there, Tookey: there’s allays two 25 
’pinions ; there’s the ’pinion a man has of himsen, 
and there’s the ’pinion other folks have on him. 
There’d be two ’pinions about a cracked bell, if the 
bell could hear itself.” 

“Well, Mr. Macey,” said poor Tookey, serious 30 
amidst the general laughter, “ I undertook to par- 

3 I know, etc. Metrical versions of the Psalms were sometimes 
used. 

11. Bassoon \ bass wind instrument. 

12. Key-bugle A wind instrument, somewhat resembling a flutes 
but possessing a peculiarly shrill and piercing tone. 


So 


SILAS iMARNER. 


tially fill up the office of parish-clerk by Mr. Crack- 
enthorp’s desire, whenever your infirmities should 
make you unfitting ; and it’s one of the rights thereof 
to sing in the choir — else why have you done the 
b same yourself? ” 

Ah ! but the old gentleman and you are two 
folks,” said Ben Winthrop. ‘‘The old gentleman’s 
got a gift. Why, the Squire used to invite him to 
take a glass, only to hear him sing the ‘ Red 
loRovier’ : didn’t he, Mr. Macey? It’s a nat’ral gift. 
There’s my little lad Aaron, he’s got a gift — he can 
sing a tune off straight, like a throstle. But as for 
you. Master Tookey, you’d better stick to your 
‘ Amens ’ : your voice is well enough when you keep 
15 it up in your nose. It’s your inside as isn’t right 
made for music : it’s no better nor a hollow stalk.” 

This kind of unflinching frankness was the most 
piquant form of joke to the company at the Rain- 
bow, and Ben Winthrop’s insult was felt by every- 
20 body to have capped Mr. Macey’s epigram. 

“I see what it is plain enough,” said Mr. Tookey, 
unable to keep cool any longer. “ There’s a con- 
speracy to turn me out o’ the choir, as I shouldn’t 
share the Christmas money — that’s where it is. 
25 But I shall speak to Mr. Crackenthorp ; I’ll not be 
put upon by no man.” 

“ Nay, nay, Tookey,” said Ben Winthrop. “We’ll 
pay you your share to keep out of it — that’s what 
we’ll do. There’s things folks ’ud pay to be rid on, 
^besides varmin.” 

“ Come, come,” said the landlord, who felt that 
paying people for their absence was a principle 

12. Throstle. A thrush. 

i 6 . Nor. Than; a colloquial form. 

20. Epigram. A pointed and ingenious turn of statement. 


SILAS MARNER. 8l 

dangerous to society ; a joke’s a joke. We’re all 
good friends here, I hope. We must give and take. 
You’re both right and you’re both wrong, as I say. 
I agree wi’ Mr. Macey here, as there’s two opinions ; 
and if mine was asked, I should say they’re both 
right. Tookey’s right and Winthrop’s right, and 
they’ve only got to split the difference and make 
themselves even.” 

The farrier was puffing his pipe rather fiercely, in 
some contempt at this trivial discussion. He had 
no ear for music himself, and never went to church, 
as being of the medical profession, and likely to be 
in requisition for delicate cows. But the butcher, 
having music in his soul, had listened with a divided 
desire for Tookey’s defeat and for the preservation 
of the peace. 

To be sure,” he said, following up the land- 
lord's conciliatory view, we’re fond of our old 
clerk ; it’s nat’ral, and him used to be such a 
singer, and got a brother as is known for the first 
fiddler in this country-side. Eh, it’s a pity but 
what Solomon lived in our village, and could give 
us a tune when we liked ; eh, Mr. Macey ? I’d keep 
him in liver and lights for nothing — that I would.” 

Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey, in the height of com- 
placency ; our family’s been known for musi- 
cianers as far back as anybody can tell. But them 
things are dying out, as I tell Solomon every time 
he comes round ; there’s no voices like what there 
used to be, and there’s nobody remembers what we 
remember, if it isn’t the old crows.” 

Ay, you remember when first Mr. Lammeter’s 
father come into these parts, don’t you, Mr. 
Macev?” said the landlord. 


. 5 

I 

.10 

15 

20 

25 

30 


34 . nights. 


82 


SILAS MARNER. 


I should think 1 did,” said the old man, who 
had now gone through that complimentary process 
necessary to bring him up to the point of narration ; 
“ and a fine old gentleman he was — as fine, and 
6 finer nor the Mr. Lammeter as now is. He came 
from a bit north’ard, so far as I could ever make 
out. But there’s nobody rightly knows about those 
parts : only it couldn’t be far north’ard, nor much 
different from this country, for he brought a fine 
10 breed o’ sheep with him, so there must be pastures 
there, and everything reasonable. We beared tell 
as he’d sold his own land to come and take the 
Warrens, and that seemed odd for a man as had 
land of his own, to come and rent a farm in a 
15 strange place. But they said it was along of his 
wife’s dying : though there’s reasons in things as 
nobody knows on — that’s pretty much what I’ve 
made out ; yet some folks are so wise, they’ll find 
you fifty reasons straight off, and all the while the 
20 real reason’s winking at ’em in the corner, and they 
niver see’t. Howsomever, it was. soon seen as we’d 
got a new parish’ner as know’d the rights and 
customs o’ things, and kep’ a good house, and was 
well looked on by everybody. And the young man 
26 — that’s the Mr. Lammeter as now is, for he’d 
niver a sister — soon begun to court Miss Osgood, 
that’s the sister o’ the Mr. Osgood as now is, and a 
fine, handsome lass she was — eh, you can’t think — 
they pretend this young lass is like her, but that’s 
80 the way wi’ people as don’t know what come before 
’em. I should know, for I helped the old rector, 
Mr. Drumlow as was, I helped him marry ’em.” 

Here Mr. Macey paused ; he always gave his 
narrative in instalments, expecting to be questioned 
35 according to precedent. 


SILAS MARNER. 


83 


** Ay, and a partic’lar thing happened, didn’t it, 
Mr. Macey, so as you were likely to remember that 
marriage?” said the landlord, in a congratulatory 
tone. 

‘‘I should think there did — a very partic’lar 6 
thing,” said Mr. Macey, nodding sideways. For 
Mr. Drumlow — poor old gentleman, I was fond on 
him, though he’d got a bit confused in his head, 
what wi’ age and wi’ taking a drop o’ summat warm 
when the service come of a cold morning. And 10 
young Mr. Lammeter he’d have no way but he must 
be married in Janiwary, which, to be sure, ’s a un- 
reasonable time to be married in, for it isn’t like a 
christening or a burying, as you can’t help ; and so 
Mr. Drumlow — poor old gentleman, I was fond on is 
him — but when he come to put the questions, he 
put ’em by the rule o’ contrairy, like, and he says, 

* Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded wife ? ’ 
says he, and then he says, ^ Wilt thou have this 
woman to thy wedded husband?’ says he. But the 20 
partic’larest thing of all is, as nobody took any 
notice on it but me, and they answered straight off 
'yes,’ like as if it had been me saying 'Amen,’ i’ the 
right place, without listening to what went before.” 

" But you knew what was going on well enough, 26 
didn’t you, Mr. Macey? You were live enough, 
eh ? ” said the butcher. 

" Lor bless you !” said Mr. Macey, pausing, and 
smiling in pity at the impotence of his hearer’s 
imagination — "why, I was all of a tremble : it was so 
as if I’d been a coat pulled by the two tails, like ; 
for I couldn’t stop the parson, 1 couldn’t take upon 
me to do that ; and yet I said to myself, I says, 

' Suppose they shouldn’t be fast married, ’cause the 
words are contrairy? ’ and my head went working 35 


84 


SILAS MARNER. 


like a mill, for I was allays uncommon for turning 
things over and seeing all round ’em ; and I says to 
myself, ^ Is ’t the meanin’ or the words as makes 
folks fast i’ wedlock?’ For the parson meant right, 
sand the bride and bridegroom meant right. But 
then, when I come to think on it, meanin’ goes but 
a little way i’ most things, for you may mean to 
stick things together and your' glue may be bad, and 
then where are you? And so I says to mysen, ‘ It 
10 isn’t the meanin’, it’s the glue.’ And I was 
worreted as if I’d got three bells to pull at once, 
when we went into the vestry, and they begun to 
sign their names. But where’s the use o’ talking? 
— yoi can’t think what goes on in a ’cute man’s 
15 inside.” 

But you held in for all that, didn’t you, Mr. 
Macey?” said the landlord. 

Ay, I held in tight till I was by mysen wi’ Mr. 
Drumlow, and then I out wi’ everything, but 
20 respectful, as I allays did. And he made light on 
it, and he says, ^ Pooh, pooh, Macey, make your- 
self easy,’ he says ; ‘ it’s neither the meaning nor 
the words — it’s the regester does it — that’s the glue.’ 
So you see he settled it easy ; for parsons and 
25 doctors know everything by heart, like, so as they 
aren’t worreted wi’ thinking what’s the rights and 
wrongs o’ things, as I’n been many and many’s the 
time. And sure enough the wedding turned out all 
right, on’y poor Mrs. Lammeter — that’s Miss Os- 
30 good as was — died afore the lasses was growed up; 
but for prosperity and everything respectable, 
there’s no family more looked on.” 

II. Pull at once. That is, a cliime oi three bells. 

23. Regester. (Register.) The record of all the births, deaths, and 
marriages that occur in a parish. 


SILAS MARNER. 


85 


Every one of Mr. Macey's audience had heard this 
story many times, but it was listened to as if it had 
been a favorite tune, and at certain points the puf- 
fing of the pipes was momentarily suspended, that 
the listeners might give their whole minds to the 6 
expected words. But there was more to come ; 
and Mr. Snell, the landlord, duly put the leading 
question. 

Why, old Mr. Lammeter had a pretty fortin, 
didn’t they say, when he come into these parts?” 10 

Well, yes,” said Mr. Macey ; ^^but I daresay 
it’s as much as this Mr. Lammeter’s done to keep it 
whole. For there was allays a talk as nobody could 
get rich on the Warrens : though he holds it cheap, 
for it’s what they call Charity Land.” 

Ay, and there’s few folks know so well as you 
how it come to be Charity Land, eh, Mr. Macey? ” 
said the butcher. 

'^How should they?” said the old clerk, with 
some contempt. VVhy, my grandfather made the 20 
groom’s livery for that Mr. Cliff as came and built 
the big stables at the Warrens. Why, they’re 
stables four times as big as Squire Cass’s, for he 
thought o’ nothing but bosses and hunting. Cliff 
didn’t — a Lunnon tailor, some folks said, as had 25 
gone mad wi’ cheating. For he couldn’t ride ; lor 
bless you ! they said he got no more grip o’ the 
boss than if his legs had been cross-sticks : my 
grandfather beared old Squire Cass say so many 
and many a time. But ride he would as if Oldao 
Harry had been a-driving him; and he’d a son, a 
lad o’ sixteen ; and nothing would his father have 

25. Lunnon. London. 

' 30. Old Harry. The Devil; a rustic form of expression, the mean- 
ing of which scarcely occurs to those who use it 


86 


SILAS MARKER. 


him do, but he must ride and ride — though the 
lad was frighted, they said. And it was a com- 
mon saying as the father wanted to ride the tailor 
out o’ the lad, and make a gentleman on him — 
5 not but what I’m a tailor myself, but in respect as 
God made me such. I’m proud on it, for ‘ Macey, 
tailor,’ ’s been wrote up over our door since afore 
the Queen’s heads went out on the shillings. But 
Cliff, he was ashamed o’ being called a tailor, and 
10 he was sore vexed as his riding was laughed at, and 
nobody o’ the gentlefolks hereabout could abide 
him. Howsomever, the poor lad got sickly and 
died, and the father didn’t live long after him, for 
he got queerer nor ever, and they said he used to 
16 go out i’ the dead o’ the night, wi’ a lantern in his 
hand, to the stables, and set a lot o’ lights burning, 
for he got as he couldn’t sleep ; and there he’d 
stand, cracking his whip and looking at his bosses ; 
and they said it was a mercy as the stables didn’t 
2Qget burnt down wi’ the poor dumb creaturs in ’em. 
But at last he died raving, and they found as he’d 
left all his property, Warrens and all, to a Lunnon 
Charity, and that’s how the Warrens come to be 
Charity Land ; though, as for the stables, Mr. 
25 Lammeter never uses ’em — they’re out o’ all 
charicter — lor bless you! if you was to set the 
doors a-banging in ’em, it ’ud sound like thunder 
half o’er the parish.” 

*‘Ay, but there’s more going on in the stables 
30 than what folks see by daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?” 
said the landlord. 

Ay, ay ; go that way of a dark night, that’s all,” 
said Mr. Macey, winking mysteriously, ‘‘ and then 

8. Shillings. Those on which the head of Queen Anne was im- 
pressed (1702-1714.) 


SILAS MARNER. 


87 


make believe, if you like, as you didn’t see lights i’ 
the stables, nor hear the stamping o’ the bosses, 
nor the cracking o’ the whips, and howling, too, if 
it’s tow’rt daybreak. ‘ Cliff’s Holiday ’ has been 
the name of it ever sin’ I were a boy ; that’s to say, 5 
some said it was the holiday Old Harry gev him 
from roasting, like. That’s what my father told me, 
and he was a reasonable man, though there’s folks 
nowadays know what happened afore they were 
born better nor they know their own business.” 10 
‘‘ What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas ? ” said 
the landlord, turning to the farrier, who was swell- 
ing with impatience for his cue. There’s a nut 
iox you to crack.” 

Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the com- is 
pany, and was proud of his position. 

Say? I say what a man should say as doesn’t 
shut his eyes to look at a finger-post. I say, as I’m 
ready to wager any man ten poum\ if he’ll stand 
out wi’ me any dry night in the pasture before the 20 
Warren stables, as we shall neither see lights nor 
hear noises, if it isn’t the blowing of our own noses. 
That’s what I say, and I’ve said it many a time ; 
but there’s nobody ’ull ventur a ten-pun’ note on 
their ghos’es as they make so sure of.” 25 

‘‘Why, Dowlas, that’s easy betting, that is,” said 
Ben Winthrop. “You might as well bet a man as 
he wouldn’t catch the rhumatise if he stood up to’s 
neck in the pool of a frosty night. It ’ud be fine 
fun for a man to win his bet as he’d catch the 3 e 
rhumatise. Folks as believe in Cliff’s Holiday aren’t 
agoing to ventur near it for a matter o’ ten pound.” 

A,. Tow’rt. Toward. 

18. Finger-post. The guide board. 

24. Ten-pun’-note A ten-pound note; about equal to a fifty-dollar 
bill. 


88 


SILAS MARNER. 


“ If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth on 
it,” said Mr. Macey, with a sarcastic smile, tapping 
his thumbs together, he’s no call to lay any bet 
— let him go and stan’ Dy himself — there’s nobody 
5’ull hinder him ; and then he can let the parish’ners 
know if they’re wrong.” 

Thank you! I’m obliged to you,” said the 
farrier, with a snort of scorn. If folks are fools, 
it’s no business o’ mine. / don’t want to make out 
10 the truth about ghos’es : I know it a’ ready. But I’m 
not against a bet — everything fair and open. Let 
any man bet me ten pound as I shall see Cliff’s 
Holiday, and I’ll go and stand by myself. I want 
no company. I’d as lief do it as I’d fill this pipe.” 
15 Ah, but who’s to watch you. Dowlas, and see 
you do it? That’s no fair bet,” said the butcher. 

‘‘No fair bet?” replied Mr. Dowlas, angrily. “ I 
should like to hear any man stand up and say 
I want to bet unfair. Come now. Master Lundy, 
20 1 should like to hear you say it.” 

“Very like you would,” said the butcher. “But 
it’s no business o’ mine. You’re none o’ my bar- 
gains, and I aren’t a-going to try and ’bate your 
price. If anybody ’ll bid for you at your own vally- 
25ing, let him. I’m for peace and quietness, I am.” 

“Yes, that’s what every yapping cur is, when you 
hold a stick up at him,” said the farrier. “ But I’m 
afraid o’ neither man nor ghost, and I’m ready to 
lay a fair bet. 1 aren’t a turn-tail cur.” 

30 “ Ay, but there’s this in it. Dowlas,” said the 

landlord, speaking in a tone of much candor and 
tolerance. “ There’s folks, i’ my opinion, ' they 
can’t see ghos’es, not if they stood as plain as a 

23. ’Bate. Abate, lower. 

24. Vallying. Valuation, price. 


SILAS MARNER. 


89 


pike-staff before ’em. And there’s reason i’ that. 
For there’s my wife, now, can’t smell, not if she’d 
the strongest o’ cheese under her nose. I never 
see’d a ghost myself ; but then I says to myself, 

^ Very like I haven’t got the smell for ’em.’ I g 
mean, putting a ghost for a smell, or else contrairi- 
wa)s. And so. I'm for holding with both sides; 
for, as 1 say, the truth lies between ’em. And if 
Dowlas was to go and stand, and say he’d never 
seen a wink o’ Cliff’s Holiday all the night through, ifl 
Fd back him ; and if anybody said as Cliff’s Holi- 
day certain sure for all that. I’d back hitn^ too. 
For the smell’s what I go by.” 

The landlord’s analogical argument was not well 
received by the farrier — a man intensely opposed is 
to compromise. 

Tut, tut,” he said, setting down his glass with 
refreshed irritation ; what’s the smell got to do 
with it? Did ever a ghost give a man a black eye? 
That’s what I should like to know. If ghos’es want 20 
me to believe in ’em, let ’em leave oS skulking i’ 
the dark and i’ lone places — let ’em come where 
there’s company and candles.” 

As if ghos’es ’ud want to be believed in by any- 
body so ignirant 1 ” said Mr. Macey, in deep dis- 25 
gust at the farrier’s crass incompetence to appre- 
hend the conditions of ghostly phenomena. 

I. Pike-staff, A long wooden shaft with a pointed steel head, for- 
merly used by infantry in the army. 

26. Crass, Den.se, stupid. 

27. Phetiomena. Supernatural manifestations. 


90 


SILAS MARNER. 


CHAPTER VII. 

Yet the next moment there seemed to be some 
evidence that ghosts had a more condescending dis- 
position than Mr. Macey attributed to them ; for 
the pale, thin figure of Silas Marner was suddenly 
6 seen standing in the warm light, uttering no word, 
but looking round at the company with his strange, 
unearthly eyes. The long pipes gave a simultane- 
ous movement, like the antennse of startled insects, 
and every man present, not excepting even the 
10 skeptical farrier, had an impression that he saw, not 
Silas Marner in the flesh, but an apparition ; for the 
door by which Silas had entered was hidden by the 
high screened seats, and no one had noticed his 
approach. 

16 Mr. Macey, sitting a long way off the ghost, 
might be supposed to have felt an argumentative 
triumph, which would tend to neutralize his share 
of the general alarm. Had he not always said that 
when Silas Marner was in that strange trance of his, 
20 his soul went loose from his body? Here was the 
demonstration : nevertheless, on the whole, he 
would have been as well contented without it. 

For a few moments there was a dead silence, 
Marner’s want of breath and agitation not allowing 
26 him to speak. The landlord, under the habitual 
sense that he was bound to keep his house open to 
all company, and confident in the protection of his 
unbroken neutrality, at last took on himself the 
task of adjuring the ghost. 

8. Antennae. Long feelers which grow upon the heads of certain 
insects. 

15. Off. Supply from, 

2^. Adjuring. Addressing in a propitiatory way. 


SILAS RIARNER. 9 1 

Master Marner,” he said, in a conciliatory tone, 

what’s lacking to you ? What’s your business 
here ? ” 

Robbed ! ” said Silas, gaspingly. ‘‘ I’ve been 
robbed ! I want the constable — and the Justice — 
and Squire Cass — and Mr. Cracken thorp.” 

Lay hold on him, Jem Rodney,” said the land- 
lord, the idea of a ghost subsiding ; he’s off his 
head, I doubt. He’s wet through.” 

Jem Rodney was the outermost man, and sat 
conveniently near Marner’s standing-place ; but he 
declined to give his services. 

Come and lay hold on him yourself, Mr. Snell, 
if you’ve a mind,” said Jem, rather sullenly. 
‘‘ He’s been robbed and murdered, too, for what I 
know,” he added, in a muttering tone. 

Jem Rodney ! ” said Silas, turning and fixing 
his strange eyes on the suspected man. 

‘L\y, Master Marner, what do ye want wi’ me? ” 
said Jem, trembling a little, and seizing his drink- 
ing-can as a defensive weapon. 

If it was you stole my money,” said Silas, 
clasping his hands entreatingly, and raising his 
voice to a cry, give it me back — and I won’t 
meddle with you. I won’t set the constable on 
you. Give it me back, and I’ll let you — I’ll let 
you have a guinea.” 

‘‘Me stole your money!” said Jem angrily. 
“ I’ll pitch this can at your eye if you talk o’ my 
stealing your money.” 

“ Come, come. Master Marner,” said the land- 
lord, now rising resolutely, and seizing Marner by 

5. Justice. The village magistrate before whom all petty culprits 
were brought for judgment. 

8 . Off his head. Insane ; a bit of slang still in use. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

80 


92 


SILAS MARNER. 


the shoulder, if you’ve got any information to lay, 
speak it out sensible, and show as you’re in your 
right mind, if you expect anybody to listen to you. 
You’re as wet as a drownded rat. Sit down and dry 
6 yourself, and speak straight forrard.” 

‘‘Ah, to be sure, man,” said the farrier, who 
began to feel that he had not been quite on a par 
with himself and the occasion. “ Let’s have no 
more staring and screaming, else we’ll have you 
10 strapped for a madman. That’s why I didn’t speak 
first — thinks I, the man’s run mad.” 

“ Ay, ay, make him sit down,” said several voices 
at once, well pleased that the reality of ghosts 
remained still an open question. , 

1^ The landlord forced Marner to take off fis coat, 
and then to sit down on a chair aloof from everyone 
else, in the centre of the circle and in the direct 
rays of the fire. The weaver, too feeble to have 
any distinct purpose beyond that of getting help to 
20 recover his money, submitted unresistingly. The 
transient fears of the company were now forgotten 
in their strong curiosity, and all faces were turned 
towards Silas, when the landlord, having seated 
himself again, said : 

25 n Now then. Master Marner, what’s this you’ve 
got to say — as you’ve been robbed? Speak out.” 

“ He’d better not say again as it was me robbed 
him,” cried Jem Rodney, hastily. ‘.‘What could I 
ha’ done with his money? I could as easy steal 
30 the parson’s surplice, and wear it.” 

“Hold your tongue, Jem, and let’s hear what he’s 
got to say,” said the landlord. “ Now then, 
Marner.” 

1. Lay. That is, submit to the Justice. 

30. Surplice A white linen robe with wide sleeves worn by an 
officiating clergyman in the Anglican and Roman churches. 


SILAS MARNER. 


93 


Silas now told his story, under frequent question- 
ing as the mysterious character of the robbery 
became evident. 

This strangely novel situation of opening his 
trouble to his Raveloe neighbors, of sitting in the s 
warmth of a hearth not his own, and feeling the 
presence of faces and voices which were his nearest 
promise of help, had doubtless its influence on 
Marner, in spite of his passionate preoccupation 
with his loss. Our consciousness rarely registers lo 
the beginning of a growth within us any more than 
without Us : there have been many circulations of 
the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the 
bud. 

The slight suspicion with which h^.s hearers at is 
first listened to him, gradually melted away before 
the convincing simplicity of his distress: it was 
impossible for the neighbors to doubt that Marner 
was telling the truth, not because they were capable 
of arguing at once from the nature of his statements 20 
to the absence of any motive for making them 
falsely, but because, as Mr. Macey observed. 

Folks as had the devil to back ’em were not likely 
to be so mushed ” as poor Silas was. Rather, from 
the strange fact that the robber had left no traces, 25 
and had happened to know the knick of time, 
utterly incalculable by mortal agents, when Silas 
would go away from home without locking his door, 
the more probable conclusion seemed to be, that 
his disreputable intimacy in that quarter, if it ever so 
existed, had been broken up, and that, in conse- 
quence, this ill turn had been done to Marner by 
somebody it was quite in vain to set the constable 
after. Why this preternatural felon should be 

24. Mushed. Equivalent to the more modern “ mashed.” 


94 


SILAS MARNER. 


obliged to wait till the door was left unlocked, was 
a question which did not present itself. 

It isn’t Jem Rodney as has done this work, 
Master Marner,” said the landlord. You mustn’t 
6 be a-casting your eye at poor Jem. There may be 
a bit of a reckoning against Jem for the matter of a 
hare or so if anybody was bound to keep their eyes 
staring open, and niver to wink ; but Jem’s been 
a-sitting here drinking his can, like the decentest 
10 man i’ the parish, since before you left your house, 
Master Marner, by your own account.” 

Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey ; let’s -have no 
accusing o’ the innicent. That isn’t the law. There 
must be folks to swear again’ a man before he can 
15 be ta’en up. Let’s have no accusing o’ the inniceu 
Master Marner.” 

Memory was not so utterly torpid in Silas that it 
could not be wakened by these words. AVith a 
movement of compunction as new and strange to 
20 him as everything else within the last hour, he 
started from his chair and went close up to Jem, 
looking at him as if he wanted to assure himself of 
the expression in his face. 

was wrong,” he said — yes, yes — I ought 
25 to have thought. There’s nothing to witness against 
you, Jem. Only you’d been into my house oftener 
than anybody else, and so you came into my head. 
I don’t accuse you — I won’t accuse anybody — 
only,” he added, lifting up his hands to his head, 
30 and turning away with bewildered misery, I try — 
I try to think where my guineas can be.” 

Ay, ay, they’re gone where its hot enough to 
melt ’em, I doubt,” said Mr. Macey. 

Tchuh ! ” said the farrier. And then he asked, 

14. Again’. Against; that is, to take out a warrant against a person. 


SILAS MARNER. 


95 


with a cross-examining air, How much money 
might there be in the bags, Master Marner? 

^^Two hundred and seventy-two pounds, twelve 
and sixpence, last night when I counted it,” said 
Silas, seating himself again with a groan. 5 

Pooh ! why they’d be none so heavy to carry. 
Some tramp’s been in, that’s all ; and as for the no 
footmarks, and the bricks and the sand being all 
right — why, your eyes are pretty much like a 
insect’s. Master Marner; they’re obliged to look soio 
close, you can’t see much at a time. It’s my 
opinion as, if I’d been you, or you’d been me — 
for it comes to the same thing — you wouldn’t have 
thought you’d found everything as you left it. But 
what I vote is, as two of the sensiblest o’ the com- is 
pany should go with you to Master Kench, the 
constable’s — he’s ill i’ bed, I know that much — 
and get him to appoint one of us his deppity ; for 
that’s the law, and I don’t think anybody ’ull take 
upon him to contradick me there. It isn’t much 20 
of a walk to Kench’s ; and then, if it’s me as is 
deppity. I’ll go back with you. Master Marner, and 
examine your premises ; and if anybody’s got any 
fault to find with that. I’ll thank him to stand up 
and say it out like a man.” 25 

By this pregnant speech the farrier had re-estab- 
lished his self-complacency, and waited with con- 
fidence to hear himself named as one of the super- 
latively sensible men. 

Let us see how the night is, though,” said the 30 
landlord, who also considered himself personally 
concerned in this proposition. ‘‘Why, it rains 
heavy still,” he said returning from the door. 

“ Well, I’m not the man to be afraid of the rain,” 

18. Deppity. Deputy. 


96 


SILAS MARNER. 


laid the farrier. For it’ll look bad when Justice 
Malam hears as respectable men like us had a 
information laid before ’em and took no steps.” 

The landlord agreed with this view, and after 
* taking the sense of the company, and duly rehears- 
ing a small ceremony known in high ecclesiastical 
life as the nolo episcopari, he consented to take on 
himself the chill dignity of going to Kench’s. But 
to the farrier’s strong disgust, Mr. Macey now started 
10 an objection to his proposing himself as a deputy- 
constable ; for that oracular old gentleman, claim- 
ing to know the law, stated, as a fact delivered to 
him by his father, that no doctor could be a con- 
stable. 

15 ^^And you’re a doctor, I reckon, though you’re 
only a cow-doctor, for a fly’s a fly, though it may 
be a boss fly,” concluded Mr. Macey, wondering a 
little at his own cuteness.” 

There was a hot debate upon this, the farrier 
being of course indisposed to renounce the quality 
of doctor, but contending that a doctor could be a 
constable if he liked — the law meant, he needn’t 
be one if he didn’t like. Mr. Macey thought this 
was nonsense, since the law was not likely to be 
25 fonder of doctors than of other folks. Moreover, 
if it was in the nature of doctors more than of 
other men not to like being constables, how came 
Mr. Dowlas, to be so eager to act in that capacity? 
don’t want to act the constable,” said the far- 
sorier, driven into a corner by this merciless reason- 
ing ; and there’s no man can say it of me, if he’d 
tell the truth. But if there’s to be an} jealousy and 
enz{ying about going to Kench’s in the rain, let 

7. Nolo episcopari A Latin phrase, meaning “ I do not wish tc 
serve as bishop." Bishops were supposed to make this modest disclaimer 
before consecration. 


SILAS MARKER. 


97 


them go as like it — you won’t get me to go, I can 
tell you.” 

By the landlord’s intervention, however, the dis- 
pute was accommodated. Mr. Dowlas consented to 
go as a second person disinclined to act officially ; 5 
and so poor Silas, furnished with some jold coverings, 
turned out with his two companions into the rain 
again, thinking of the long night hours before him, 
not as those do who long to rest, but as those who 
expect to ^Dvatch for the morning.” 10 


CHAPTER Vni. 

When Godfrey Cass returned from Mrs. Osgood’s 
party at midnight, he was not much surprised to 
learn that Dunsey had not come home. Perhaps 
he had not sold Wildfire, and was wailing for an- 
other chance — perhaps, on that foggy afternoon, he 15 
had preferred housing himself at the Red Lion at 
Batherley for the night, if the run had kept him in 
that neighborhood ; for he was not likely to feel 
much concern about leaving his brother in suspense. 
Godfrey’s mind was too full of Nancy Lammeter’s2o 
looks and behavior, too full of the exasperation 
against himself and his lot, which the sight of her 
always produced in him, for him to give much 
thought to Wildfire, or to the probabilities of 
Dunstan’s conduct. 2 . 

The next morning the whole village was excited 
by the story of the robbery, and Godfrey, like every 
one else, was occupied in gathering and discussing 
news about it, and in visiting the Stone-pits. The 
rain had washed away all possibility of distinguish- 30 

10. Watch for the morning. “ My soul waiteth for the Lord more 
than they that watch for the morning.” — Psalm cxxx , 6. 


98 


SILAS MARKER. 


ing footnicixks, but a close investigation of the spot 
had disclosed, in the direction opposite to the village, 
a tinder-box with a flint and steel, half sunk in the 
mud. It was not Silas’s tinder-box, for the only 
8 one he had ever had was still standing on his shelf ; 
and the inference generally accepted was, that the 
tinder-box in the ditch was somehow connected 
with the robbery. 

A small minority shook their heads, and inti- 
10 mated their opinion that it was not a robbery to 
have much light thrown on it by tinder-boxes, that 
Master Marner’s tale had a queer look with it, and 
that such things had been known as a man’s doing 
himself a mischief, and then setting the justice to 
15 look for the doer. But when questioned closely as 
to their grounds for this opinion, and what Master 
Marner had to gain by such false pretences, they 
only shook their heads as before, and observed that 
there was no knowing what some folks counted 
20 gain; moreover, that everybody had a right to 
their own opinions, grounds or no grounds, and 
that the weaver, as everybody knew, was partly 
crazy. 

Mr. Macey, though he joined in the defence of 
26 Marner against all suspicions of deceit, also pooh- 
poohed the tinder-box ; indeed, repudiated it as a 
rather impious suggestion, tending to imply that 
everthing must be done by human hands, and that 
there was no power which could make away with 
80 the guineas without moving the bricks. Neverthe- 
less, he turned round rather sharply on Mr. 
Tookey, when the zealous deputy, feeling that this 
was a view of the case peculiarly suited to a parish- 

7. Tinder-box. A tin box containing a “flint and steel” for pro- 
ducing sparks. This was before the day of matches. 


SILAS MARNER. 


99 


clerk, carried it still further, and doubted whether 
it was right to inquire into a robbery at all when 
the circumstances were so mysterious. 

‘‘As if,” concluded Mr. Tookey — “ as if there 
was nothing but what could be made out by jus- 6 
tices and constables.” 

“ Now, don’t you be for over-shooting the mark, 
Tookey,” said Mr. Macey, nodding his head aside, 
admonishingly. “ That’s what you’re allays at ; if I 
throw a stone and hit, you think there’s summatio 
better than hitting, and you try to throw a stone 
beyond. What I said was against the tinder-box : 

I said nothing against justices and constables, for 
they’re o’ King George’s making, and it ’ud be ill- 
becoming a man in a parish office to fly out again’ is 
King George.” 

While these discussions were going on amongst 
the group outside the Rainbow, a higher consulta- 
tion was being carried on within, under the presi- 
dency of Mr. Crackenthorp, the rector, assisted by 20 
Squire Cass and other substantial parishioners. It 
had just occurred to Mr. Snell, the landlord — he 
being, as he observed, a man accustomed to put 
two and two together — to connect with the tinder- 
box, which, as deputy-constable, he himself had 26 
had the honorable distinction of finding, certain 
recollections of a peddler who had called to drink at 
the house about a month before, and had actually 
stated that he carried a tinder-box about with him 
to light his pipe. Here, surely was a clue to be so 
followed out. And as memory, when duly impreg- 
nated with ascertained facts, is sometimes surpris- 
ingly fertile, Mr. Snell gradually recovered a vivid 
impression of the effect produced on him by the 

14. King George’s making. Officers appointed by the king. 


lOO 


SILAS MARNER. 


peddler’s countenance and conversation. He had 
a “ look with his eye ” which fell unpleasantly on 
Mr. Snell’s sensitive organism. To be sure, he 
didn’t say anything particular — no, except that 
6 about the tinder-box — but it isn’t what a man says, 
it’s the way he says it. Moreover, he had a swarthy 
foreignness of complexion which boded little hon- 
esty. 

‘‘Did he wear ear-rings?” Mr. Crackenthorp 
10 wished to know, having some acquaintance with 
foreign customs. 

“ Well — stay — let me see,” said Mr. Snell, like a 
docile clairvoyante, who would really not make a 
mistake if she could help it. After stretching the 
15 corners of his mouth and contracting his eyes, as if 
he were trying to see the ear-rings, he appeared to 
give up the effort, and said, “ Well, he’d got ear- 
rings in his box to sell so it’s nat’ral to suppose he 
might wear ’em. But he caUed at every house 
20a’most, in the village; there’s somebody else, may- 
hap, saw ’em in his ears, though I can’t take it 
upon me rightly to say.” 

Mr. Snell was correct in his surmise, that some- 
body else would remember the peddler’s ear-rings. 
25 For on the spread of inquiry among the villagers 
it was stated, with gathering emphasis, that the 
parson had wanted to know whether the peddler 
wore ear-rings in his ears, and an impression was 
created that a great deal depended on the eliciting 
30 of this fact. Of course, every one who heard 
the question, not having any distinct image of the 
peddler as without ear-rings, immediately had an 
image of him with ear-rings, larger or smaller as the 

13. Clairvoyante. One who is supposed to be able to communicate 
with the world of spirits 


SILAS MARNER. 


lOI 


case might be ; and the image was presently taken 
for a vivid recollection, so that the glazier’s wife, a 
well-intentioned woman, not given to lying, and 
whose house was among the cleanest in the village, 
was ready to declare, as sure as ever she meant to 
take the sacrament the very next Christmas that 
was ever coming, that she had seen big ear-rings, 
in the shape of the young moon, in the peddler’s 
two ears; while Jinny Oates, the cobbler’s daughter, 
being a more imaginative person, stated not only 
that she had seen them too, but that they had made 
her blood creep, as it did at that very moment 
while there she stood. 

Also, by way of throwing further light on this clue 
of the tinder-box, a collection was made of all the 
articles purchased from the peddler at various 
houses, and carried to the Rainbow to be exhibited 
there. In fact, there was a general feeling in the 
village, that for the clearing-up of this robbery 
there must be a great deal done at the Rainbow, 
and that no man need offer his wife an excuse for 
going there while it was the scene of severe public 
duties. 

Some disappointment was felt, and perhaps a 
little indignation, also, when it became known that 
Silas Marner, on being questioned by the Squire 
and the parson, had retained no other recollection 
of the peddler than that he had called at his door, 
but had not entered his house, having turned away 
at once when Silas, holding the door ajar, had said 
that he wanted nothing. This had been Silas’s 
testimony, though he clutched strongly at the idea 

2 . Glazier. One who sets glass in window frames. 

6. Sacrament. That is, the sacrament of Holy Communion; there 
is more than one sacrament of course, but this is the sacrament. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

30 


102 


SILAS MARNER. 


of the peddler’s being the culprit, if only because it 
gave him a definite image of a whereabout for his 
gold, after it had been taken away from its hiding- 
place : he could see it now in the peddler’s box. 
5 But it was observed with some irritation in the vil- 
lage, that anybody but a blind creatur ” like 
Marner would have seen the man prowling about, 
for how came he to leave his tinder-box in the 
ditch close by, if he hadn’t been lingering there? 
10 Doubtless, he had made his observations when he 
saw Marner at the door. Anybody might know — 
and only look at him — that the weaver was a half- 
crazy miser. It was a wonder the peddler hadn’t 
murdered him ; men of that sort, with rings in 
15 their ears, had been known for murderers often 
and often ; there had been one tried at the ’sizes 
not so long ago but what there were people living 
who remembered it. 

Godfrey Cass, indeed, entering the Rainbow 
20 during one of Mr. Snell’s frequently repeated re- 
citals of his testimony, had treated it lightly, stating 
that he himself had bought a pen-knife of the 
peddler, and thought him a merry, grinning fellow 
enough ; it was all nonsense, he said, about the 
25 man’s evil looks. But this was spoken of in the 
village as the random talk of youth, as if it was 
only Mr. Snell who had seen something odd about 
the peddler ! ” On the contrary, there were at least 
half-a-dozen who were ready to go before Justice 
30 Malam, and give in much more striking testimony 
than any the landlord could furnish. It was to be 
hoped Mr. Godfrey would not go to Tarley and 
throw cold water on what Mr. Snell said there, and 

i6. Sizes. The Assizes, a circuit court of law which sits twice a 
year in every county of England and Wales to try offences. 


SILAS MARNER. 


103 


SO prevent the justice from drawing up a warrant. 
He was suspected of intending this, when, after 
mid-day, he was seen setting off on horseback in 
the direction of Tarley. 

But by this time Godfrey’s interest in the robbery 5 
had faded before his growing anxiety about Dun- 
stan and Wildfire, and he was going, not to Tarley, 
but to Batherley, unable to rest in uncertainty 
about them any longer. The possibility that Dun- 
stan had played him the ugly trick of riding away 10 
with Wildfire, to return at the end of a month, 
when he had gambled away or otherwise squandered 
the price of the horse, was a fear that urged itself 
upon him more, even, than the thought of an acci- 
dental injury; and now that the dance at Mrs. 15 
Osgood’s was past, he was irritated with himself 
that he had trusted his horse to Dunstan. In- 
stead of trying to still his fears he encouraged 
them, with that superstitious impression which 
clings to us all, that if we expect evil very strongly 20 
it is the less likely to come ; and when he heard a 
horse approaching at a trot, and saw a hat rising 
above a hedge beyond an angle of the lane, he felt 
as if his conjuration had succeeded. But no 
sooner did the horse come within sight, than his 25 
heart sank again. It was not Wildfire ; and in a 
few moments more he discerned that the rider was 
not Dunstan, but Bryce, who pulled up to speak, 
with a face that implied something disagreeable. 

“ Well, Mr. Godfrey, that’s a lucky brother of so 
yours, that Master Dunsey, isn’t he?” 

What do you mean? ” asked Godfrey hastily. 

** Why, hasn’t he been home yet? ” said Bryce. 

^^Home? no. What has happened? Be quick. 
What has he done with my horse?’' 


35 


104 


SILAS MARNER. 


Ah, I thought it was yours, though he pre- 
tended you had parted with it to him.” 

Has he thrown him down and broken his 
knees? ” said Godfrey, flushed with exasperation. 

5 Worse than that,” said Bryce. ^^You see, I’d 
made a bargain with him to buy the horse for a 
hundred and twenty — a swinging price, but I 
always liked the horse. And what does he do but 
go and stake him — fly at a hedge with stakes in it, 
10 atop of a bank with a ditch before it. The horse 
had been dead a pretty good while when he was 
found. So he hasn’t been home since, has he?” 

‘^Home? no,” said Godfrey, ^‘and he’d better 
keep away. Confound me for a fool ! I might 
15 have known this would be the end of it.” 

“Well to tell you the truth,” said Bryce, “after 
V’d bargained for the horse, it did come into my 
head that he might be riding and selling the horse 
without your knowledge, for I didn’t believe it was 
20 his own. I knew Master Dunsey was up to his 
tricks sometimes. But where can he be gone? 
He’s never been seen at Batherley. He couldn’t 
have been hurt, for he must have walked off.” 

“ Hurt? ” said Godfrey, bitterly. “ He’ll never 
25 be hurt — he’s made to hurt other people.” 

“ And so you did give him leave to sell the horse, 
eh? ” said Bryce. 

“ Yes ; I wanted to part with the horse — he was 
always a little too hard in the mouth for me,” said 
30 Godfrey ; his pride making him wince under the 
idea that Bryce guessed the sale to be a matter of 

7. Swinging. Properly swingeing, great, heavy. 

9. Stake. Allow him to be caught on a stake. 

10. Ditch. Such obstacles were especially prepared to increase the 
excitement of the chase. 


SILAS MARKER. 


105 

necessity. I was going to see after him — I 
thought some mischief had happened. I’ll go back 
now,” he added, turning the horse’s head, and 
wishing he could get rid of Bryce ; for he felt that 
the long-dreaded crisis in his life was close upon s 
him. ‘‘ You’re coming on to Raveloe, aren’t 
you? ” 

Well, no, not now,” said Bryce. I was com- 
ing round there, for I had to go to Flitton, and I 
thought I might as well take you in my way, and 10 
just let you know all I knew myself about the 
horse. I suppose Master Dunsey didn’t like to 
show himself till the ill news had blown over a bit. 
He’s perhaps gone to pay a visit at the Three 
Crowns, by Whitbridge — I know he’s fbnd of the is 
house.” 

‘‘ Perhaps he is,” said Godfrey, rather absently. 
Then rousing himself, he said, with an effort at 
carelessness, We shall hear of him soon enough. 
I’ll be bound.” 20 

Well, here’s my turning,” said Bryce, not sur- 
prised to perceive that Godfrey was rather down” ; 

so I’ll bid you good-day, and wish I may bring 
you better news another time.” 

Godfrey rode along slowly, representing to him- 26 
self the scene of confession to his father from 
which he felt that there was now no longer any 
escape. The revelation about the money must be 
made the very next morning ; and if he withheld 
the rest, Dunstan would be sure to come back 30 
shortly, and, finding that he must bear the brunt of 
his father’s anger, would tell the whole story out of 
spite, even though he had nothing to gain by it. 
There was one step, perhaps, by which he might 

22. Down. As we say “ down in the mouth”; blue. 


Io6 SILAS MARNER. 

still win Dunstan’s silence and put off the evil day : 
he might tell his father that he had himself spent 
the money paid to him by Fowler; and as he had 
never been guilty of such an offence before, the 
6 affair would blow over after a little storming. But 
Godfrey could not bend himself to this. He felt 
in letting Dunstan have the money, he had already 
been guilty of a breach of trust hardly less culpable 
than that of spending the money directly for his 
10 own behoof ; and yet there was a distinction 
between the two acts which made him feel that the 
one was so much more blackening than the other 
as to be intolerable to him. 

I don^t pretend to be a good fellow,’* he said to 
15 himself; ‘‘but I’m not a scoundrel — at least, I’ll 
stop short somewhere. I’ll bear the consequences 
of what I have done sooner than make believe I’ve 
done what I never would have done. I’d never 
have spent the money for my own pleasure — I was 
20 tortured into it.” 

Through the remainder of this day Godfrey, with 
only occasional fluctuations, kept his will bent in 
the direction of a complete avowal to his father, 
and he withheld the story of Wildfire’s loss till the 
26 next morning, that it might serve him as an intro- 
duction to heavier matter. The old Squire was 
accustomed to his son’s frequent absence from 
home, and thought neither Dunstan’s nor Wildfire’s 
non-appearance a matter calling for remark. God- 
80 frey said to himself again and again, that if he let 
slip this one opportunity of confession, he might 
never have another ; the revelation might be made 
even in a more odious way than by Dunstan’s 
malignity : she might come, as she had threatened 
35 to do. And then he tried to make the scene easier 


SILAS MARNER. 


107 


to himself by rehearsal : he made up his mind how 
he would pass from the admission of his weakness 
in letting Dunstan have the money to the fact that 
Dunstan had a hold on him which he had been 
unable to shake off, and how he would work up his ^ 
father to expect something very bad before he told 
him the fact. 

The old Squire was an implacable man : he made 
resolutions in violent anger, and he was not to be 
moved from them after his anger had subsided — as !• 
fiery volcanic matters cool and harden into rock. 
Like many violent and implacable men, he allowed 
evils to grow under favor of his own heedlessness, 
till they pressed upon him with exasperating force, 
and then he turned round with fierce severity and 15 
became unrelentingly hard. This was his system 
with his tenants : he allowed them to get into 
arrears, neglect their fences, reduce their stocks, 
sell their straw, and otherwise go the wrong way — 
and then, when he became short of money in con- 20 
sequence of this indulgence, he took the hardest 
measures and would listen to no appeal. 

Godfrey kiiew all this, and felt it with the greater 
force because he had constantly suffered annoyance 
from witnessing his father’s sudden fits of unrelent- 26 
ingness, for which his own habitual irresolution 
deprived him of all sympathy. (He was not criti- 
cal on the faulty indulgence which preceded these 
fits; that seemed to him natural enough.) Still 
there was just the chance, Godfrey thought, that so 
his father’s pride might see this marriage in a light 
that would induce him to hush it up, rather than 
turn his son out and make the family the talk of 
the country for ten miles round. 

25. Unrelentingness. An unusual form. 


108 SILAS EARNER. 

This was the view of the case that Godfrey man- 
aged to keep before him pretty closely till mid- 
night, and he went to sleep thinking that he had 
done with inward debating. But when he awoke in 
6 the still, morning darkness he found it impossible to 
reawaken his evening thoughts ; it was as if they 
had been tired out and were not to be roused to 
further work. Instead of arguments for confession, 
he could now feel the presence of nothing but its 
10 evil consequences : the old dread of disgrace came 
back — the old shrinking from the thought of raising 
a hopeless barrier between himself and Nancy — the 
old disposition to rely on chances which might be 
favorable to him, and save him from betrayal. 
15 Why, after all, should he cut off the hope of them 
by his own act? He had seen the matter in a 
wrong light yesterday. He had been in a rage 
with Dunstan, and had thought of nothing but a 
thorough breakup of their mutual understanding ; 
20 but what it would be really wisest for him to do, 
was to try and soften his father’s anger against 
Dunsey, and keep things as nearly as possible in 
their old condition. If Dunsey did not come back 
for a few days (and Godfrey did not know but that 
25 the rascal had enough money in his pocket to 
enable him to keep away still longer), everything 
might blow over. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Godfrey rose and took his own breakfast earlier 
30 than usual, but lingered in the wainscoted parlor 
till his younger brothers had finished their meal 
and gone out, awaiting his father, who always took 


SILAS ]\IARXER. 


109 

a walk with his managing- man before breakfast. 
Every one breakfasted at a different hour in the Red 
House, and the Squire was always the latest, giving 
a long chance to a rather feeble morning appetite 
before he tried it. The table had been spread ^ 
with substantial eatables nearly two hours before he 
presented himself — a tall, stout man of sixty, with a 
face in which the knit brow and rather hard glance 
seemed contradicted by the slack and feeble mouth. 
His person showed marks of habitual neglect, his 
dress was slovenly ; and yet there was something in 
the presence of the old Squire distinguishable from 
that of the ordinary farmers in the parish, who 
were perhaps every whit as refined as he, but, 
having slouched their way through life with a 
consciousness of being in the vicinity of their 

betters,” wanted that self-possession and authori- 
tativeness of voice and carriage which belonged to 
a man who thought of superiors as remote existences 
with whom he had personally little more to do than 20 
with America or the stars. The Squire had been 
used to parish homage all his life, used to the pre- 
supposition that his family, his tankards, and every- 
thing that was his, were the oldest and best ; and 
as he never associated with any gentry higher than ^6 
himself, his opinion was not disturbed by com- 
parison. 

He glanced at his son as he entered the room, 
and said, What, sir I haven’t had your break- 
fast yet?” but there was no pleasant morningso 
greeting between them ; not because of any un- 
friendliness, but because the sweet flower of courtesy 
is not a growth of such homes as the Red House. 

Yes, sir,” said Godfrey, but I was waiting to 
speak to you.” ^ 


I lO 


SILAS MARNER. 


Ah ! well,” said the squire, throwing himself 
indifferently into his chair, and speaking in a pon- 
derous coughing fashion, which was felt in Raveloe 
to be a sort of privilege of his rank, while he cut a 
Apiece of beef, and held it up before the deer- 
hound that had come in with him. Ring the bell 
for my ale, will you? You youngsters’ business is 
your own pleasure, mostly. There’s no hurry about 
it for anybody but yourselves.” 

The Squire’s life was quite as idle as his sons’, 
but it was a fiction kept up by himself and his con- 
temporaries in Raveloe that youth was exclusively 
the period of folly, and that their aged wisdom was 
constantly in a state of endurance mitigated by 
16 sarcasm. Godfrey waited, before he spoke again, 
until the ale had been brought and the door closed 
— an interval during which Fleet, the deer-hound, 
had consumed enough bits of beef to make a poor 
man’s holiday dinner. 

20 << There’s been a cursed piece of ill-luck with 

Wildfire,” he began ; happened the day before 
yesterday.” 

What ! broke his knees? ” said the Squire, after 
taking a draught of ale. I thought you knew how 
25 to ride better than that, sir. I never threw a horse 
down in my life. If I had, I might ha’ whistled for 
another, for father wasn’t quite so ready to unstring 
as some other fathers I know of. But they must 
turn over a new leaf — must. What with mort- 
30 gages and arrears. I’m as short o’ cash as a road- 
side pauper. And that fool Kimble says the news- 
paper’s talking about peace. Why, the country 
wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Prices ’ud run 

27. Unstring. A slang phrase meaning to open one’s purse, 

32. Peace. The peace that followed the Battle of Waterloo 


SILAS MARKER. 


Ill 


down like a jack, and I should never get my arrears, 
not if I sold all the fellows up. And there’s that 
damned Fowler, I won’t put up with him any 
longer; I’ve told Winthrop to go to Cox this very 
day. The lying scoundrel told me he’d be sure to 6 
pay me a hundred last month. He takes advantage 
because he’s on that outlying farm, and thinks I 
shall forget him.” 

The Squire had delivered this speech in a cough- 
ing and interrupted manner, but with no pause 
long enough for Godfrey to make it a pretext for 
taking up the word again. He felt that his father 
meant to ward off any request for money on the 
ground of the misfortune with Wildfire, and that 
the emphasis he had thus been led to lay on his 
shortness of cash and his arrears was likely to 
pi jduce an attitude of mind the utmost unfavor- 
able for his own disclosure. But he must go on, 
now he had begun. 

It’s worse than breaking the horse’s knees — ^ 
he’s been staked and killed,” he said, as soon as his 
father was silent, and had begun to cut his meat. 

But I wasn’t thinking of asking you to buy me 
another horse ; I was only thinking I’d lost the 
means of paying you with the price of Wildfire, as** 
I’d meant to do. Dunsey took him to the hunt to 
sell him for me the other day, and after he’d made 
a bargain for a hundred and twenty with Bryce, he 
went after the hounds, and took some fool’s leap or 
other that did for the horse at once. If it hadn’t 
been for that, I should have paid you a hundred 
pounds this morning.” 

1. Jack. An automatic arrangement upon a clock that gave warning 
that the hour was about to be struck. 

2 . Sold the fellows up. That is, seized their property for rent. 

6. Hundred. That is, hundred pounds. 


I 12 


SILAS MARNER. 


The Squire had laid down his knife and fork, and 
was staring at his son in amazement, not being 
sufficiently quick of brain to ^orm a probable guess 
as to what could have caused so strange an inver- 
5 sion of the paternal and filial relations as this 
proposition of his son to pay him a hundred 
pounds. 

‘^The truth is, sir — I’m very sorry — I was quite 
to blame,” said Godfrey. Fowler did pay that 
10 hundred pounds. He paid it to me, when I was 
over there one day last month. And Dunsey 
bothered me for the money, and I let him have it, 
because I hoped I should be able to pay it you 
before this.” 

15 The Squire was purple with anger before his son 
had done speaking, and found utterance difficult. 

You let Dunsey have it, sir? And how long 
have you been so thick with Dunsey that you must 
collogue with him to embezzle my money? Are you 
30 turning out a scamp? I tell you I won’t have it. 
I’ll turn the whole pack of you out of the house 
together, and marry again. I’d have you to 
remember, sir, my property’s got no entail on it — 
since my grandfather’s time the Casses can do as 
25 they like with their land. Remember that, sir ! 
Let Dunsey have the money ! Why should you let 
Dunsey have the money? There’s some lie at the 
bottom of it.” 

‘‘There’s no lie, sir,” said Godfrey. “I wouldn’t 
30 have spent the money myself, but Dunsey bothered 
me, and I was a fool and let him have it. But I 

19. Collogue A word of French derivation ; to plot together. 

19. Embezzle. Gain by deceit. 

23. Entail, An inheritance law upon certain estates, which requires 
that such estates descend intact to the eldest male heir and cannot be 
given away by will. 


SILAS IMARNER. 


113 

meant to pay it, whether he did or not. That’s 
the whole story. I never meant to embezzle 
money, and Pm not the man to do it. Yoii never 
knew m*e to do a dishonest trick, sir.” 

‘^Where’s Dunsey, then? What do you stand 5 
talking there for? Go and fetch Dunsey, as I tell 
you, and let him give account of what he wanted 
the money for, and what he’s done with it. He 
shall repent it. Pll turn him out. I said I would, 
and Pll do it. He sha’n’t brave me. Go and 10 
fetch him.” 

Dunsey isn’t come back, sir.” 

What ! did he break his own neck, then? ” said 
the Squire, with some disgust at the idea that, in 
that case, he could not fulfil his threat. 

‘‘ No, he wasn’t hurt, I believe, for the horse was 
found dead, and Dunsey must have walked off. 1 
daresay we shall see him again by-and-by. I don’t 
know where he is.” 

And what must you be letting him have my 20 
money for? Answer me that,” said the Squire, 
attacking Godfrey again smce Dunsey was not 
within reach. 

Well, sir, I don’t kno?v, ' said Godfrey, hesitat- 
ingly. That was a feebD evasion, but Godfrey was 25 
not fond of lying, and, n-^c being sufficiently aware 
that no sort of duplicity can long flourish without 
the help of vocal falsehoods, he was quite unpre- 
pared with invented mcdves. 

‘‘You don’t know? J tell you what itis, sir. 30 
You’ve been up to sr^me trick, and you’ve been 
bribing him not to t<^il,” said the Squire, with a 
sudden acuteness whic^ startled Godfrey, who felt 
his heart beat violently at the nearness of his 
father’s guess. The sudden alarm pushed him onss 


114 


SILAS MARNER. 


to take the next step — a very slight impulse suffices 
for that on a downward road. 

** Why, sir,’* he said, trying to speak with care- 
less ease, it was a little affair between me and 
6 Dunsey ; it’s no matter to anybody else. It’s 
hardly worth while to pry into young men’s fool- 
eries : it wouldn’t have made any difference to you, 
sir, if I’d not had the bad luck to lose Wildfire. I 
should have paid you the money.” 

10 ** Fooleries ! Pshaw ! it’s time you’d done with 

fooleries. And I’d have you know, sir, you must 
ha’ done with ’em,” said the Squire, frowning and 
casting an angry glance at his son. Your goings- 
on are not what I shall find money for any longer. 
15 There’s my grandfather had his stables full o’ 
horses, and kept a good house, too, and in worse 
times, by what I can make out ; and so might I, if 
1 hadn’t four good-for-nothing fellows to hang on 
me like horse-leeches. I’ve been too good a father 
20 to you all — that’s what it is. But I shall pull up, 
sir.” 

Godfrey was silent. He was not likely to be very 
penetrating in his judgments, but he had always 
had a sense that his father’s indulgence had not 
26 been kindness, and had had a vague longing for 
some discipline that would have checked his own 
errant weakness and helped his better will. The 
Squire ate his bread and meat hastily, took a deep 
draught of *ale, then turned his chair from the 
80 table, and began to speak again. 

** It’ll be all the worse for you, you know — you’d 
need try and help me keep things together.” 

Well, sir, I’ve often offered to take the manage- 

19 Horse-leeches. Leeches were often used as remedies in the days 
when bJood letting was considered necessary in disease. 


SILAS MARNER. 


II5 

mcnt of things, but you know you’ve taken it ill 
always, and seemed to think I wanted to push you 
out of your place.” 

** 1 know nothing o’ your offering or o' my taking 
it ill,” said the Squire, whose memory consisted in b 
certain strong impressions unmodified by detail ; 

** but I know one while you seemed to be thinking 
o’ marrying, and I didn’t offer to put any obstacles 
in your way, as some fathers would. I’d as lieve 
you married Lammeter’s daughter as anybody. 1 10 
suppose, if I’d said you nay, you’d ha’ kept on with 
it ; but, for want o’ contradiction, you've changed 
your mind. You’re a shilly-shally fellow ; you take 
after your poor mother. She never had a will of 
her own ; a woman has no call for one, if she's got^^ 
a proper man for her husband. But your wife had 
need have one, for you hardly know your own mind 
enough to make both your legs walk one way. 
The lass hasn’t said downright she won’t have you, 
has she?” 20 

** No,” said Godfrey, feeling very hot and uncom- 
fortable ; but I don’t think she will.” 

Think ! why, haven’t you the courage to ask 
her? Do you stick to it, you want to have /lor — 
that’s the thing ? ” 2* 

There’s no other woman I want to marry,” said 
Godfrey, evasively. 

‘‘ Well, then, let me make the offer for you, that’s 
all, if you haven’t the pluck to do it yourself. 
Lammeter isn’t likely to be loath for his (laughter 
to marry into my family, I should think. And as 
for the pretty lass, she wouldn’t have her cousin — 
and there’s nobody else, as I see, could ha’ stood 
in your way.” 

13. Shilly-shally. A hesitating fellow; the expression is a reduplica- 
tion of “ Shall I.” 


ii6 


SILAS MARKER. 


rd rather let it be, please, sir, at present,” said 
Godfrey, in alarm. I think she’s a little offended 
with me just now, and 1 should like to speak for my- 
self. A man must manage these things for himself.” 

5 <‘Well, speak, then, and manage it, and see if 
you can’t turn over a new leaf, That’s what a man 
must do when he thinks o’ marrying.” 

I don’t see how I can think of it at present, 
sir. You wouldn’t like to settle me on one of the 
to farms, I suppose, and I don’t think she’d come to 
live in this house with all my brothers. It’s a 
different sort of life to what she’s been used to.” 

Not come to live in this house? Don’t tell 
me. You ask her, that’s all,” said the Squire, with 
1'^ a short, scornful laugh. 

I’d rather let the thing be, at present, sir,” said 
Godfrey. I hope you won’t try to hurry it on by 
saying anything.” 

‘‘ I shall do what I choose,” said the Squire, 
20 << and I shall let you know I’m master ; else you 
may turn out, and find an estate to drop into some- 
where else. Go out and tell Winthrop not to go to 
Cox’s, but wait for me. And tell ’em to get my 
horse saddled. And stop : look out and get that 
25 hack o’ Dunsey’s sold, and hand me the money, 
will you? He’ll keep no more hacks at my 
expense. And if you know where he's sneaking — 
I daresay you do — you may tell him to spare him- 
self the journey o’ coming back home. Let him 
^ turn ’ostler, and keep himself. He shan’t hang on 
me any more.” 

‘‘I don’t know where he is; and if I did, it is’nt 
my place to tell him to keep away,” said Godfrey 
moving towards the door. 

30, 'Ortler. Hostler, groom. 


SILAS MARKER. 


II7 

Confound it, sir, don’t stay arguing, but go and 
order my horse,” said the Squire, taking up a 
pipe. 

Godfrey left the room, hardly knowing whether 
he were more relieved by the sense that the inter- 5 
view was ended without having made any change 
in his position, or more uneasy that he had en- 
tangled himself still further in prevarication and 
deceit. What had passed about this proposing to 
Nancy had raised a new alarm, lest by some after- 
dinner words of his father’s to Mr. Lammeter he 
should be thrown into the embarrassment of being 
obliged absolutely to decline her when she seemed 
to be within his reach. He fled to his usual 
refuge, that of hoping for some unforeseen turn of 15 
fortune, some favorable chance which would save 
him from unpleasant consequences — perhaps even 
justify his insincerity by manifesting its prudence. 

In this point of trusting to some throw of 
fortune’s dice, Godfrey can hardly be called old- 20 
fashioned. Favorable Chance is the god of all 
men who follow their own devices instead of obey- 
ing a law they believe in. Let even a polished 
man of these days get into a position he is ashamed 
to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the pos-26 
sible issues that may deliver him from the calcu- 
lable results of that position. Let him live outside 
his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that 
brings wages, and he will presently find himself 
dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible sim- so 
pleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, 
a possible state of mind in some possible person 
not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the respon- 
sibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor 
himself on the chance, that the thing left undone 36 


ii8 


SILAS MARNER. 


may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. 
Let him betray his friend’s confidence, and he will 
adore that same cunning complexity called Chance, 
which gives him the hope that his friend will never 
5 know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may 
pursue the gentilities of a profession to which 
nature never called him, and his religion will in- 
fallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he 
will believe in as the mighty creator of success, 
to The evil principle deprecated in that religion, is 
the orderly sequence by which the seed brings 
forth a crop after its kind. 


CHAPTER X. 

Justice Malam was naturally regarded in Tarley 
and Raveloe as a man of capacious mind, seeing 
15 that he could draw much wider conclusions without 
evidence than could be expected of his neighbors 
who were not on the Commissioh of the Peace. 
Such a man was not likely to neglect the clue of the 
tinder-box, and an inquiry was set on foot concern- 
20 ing a peddler, name unknown, with curly black hair 
and a foreign complexion, carrying a box of cutlery 
and jewelry, and wearing large rings in his ears. 
But either because inquiry was too slow-footed to 
overtake him, or because the description applied to 
% so many peddlers that inquiry did not know how 
to choose among them, weeks passed away, and 
there was no other result concerning the robbery 
than a gradual cessation of the excitement it had 
caused in Raveloe. 

la. Crop after its kind. See Gen. i. ii. “And God said, Let the 
earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding 
fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.” 

17. Commission of the Peace. A board of justices appointed by the 
Crown. 


SILAS MARNER. 


ri9 


Dunstan Cass's absence was hardly a subject of 
remark ; he had once before had a quarrel with his 
father, and had gone off, nobody knew whither, to 
return at the end of six weeks, take up his old 
quarters unforbidden and swagger as usual. His 6 
own family, who equally expected this issue, with 
the sole difference that the Squire was determined 
this time to forbid him the old quarters, never 
mentioned his absence ; and when his uncle 
Kimble or Mr. Osgood noticed it, the story ofio 
his having killed Wildfire and committed some 
offence against his father was enough to prevent 
surprise. 

To connect the fact of Dunsey’s disappearance 
with that of the robbery occurring on the same day, is 
lay quite away from the track of every one’s 
thought — even Godfrey’s, who had better reason 
than anyone else to know what his brother was 
capable of. He remembered no mention of the 
weaver between them since the time, twelve years 20 
ago, when it was their boyish sport to deride him ; 
and, besides, his imagination constantly created an 
alibi for Dunstan ; he saw him continually in some 
congenial haunt, to which he had walked off on 
leaving Wildfire — saw him sponging on chance 25 
acquaintances, and meditating a return home to 
the old amusement of tormenting his elder brother. 
Even if any brain in Raveloe had put the said two 
facts together, I doubt whether a combination so 
injurious to the prescriptive respectability of a so 
family with a mural monument and venerable tank- 
ards, would not have been suppressed as of un- 

23. Alibi. A plea drawn up by the accused in which he declares 
himself to have been elsewhere at the time when the crime was com- 
mitted 

31. Mural monument. A memorial tablet on the wall of a church. 


120 


SILAS MARNER. 


sound tendency. But Christmas puddings, brawn, 
and abundance of spirituous liquors, throwing the 
mental originality into the channel of nightmare, 
are great preservatives against a dangerous spon- 
5 taneity of waking thought. 

When the robbery was talked of at the Rainbow 
and elsewhere, in good company, the balance con- 
tinued to waver between the rational explanation 
founded on the tinder-box, and the theory of an 
10 impenetrable mystery that mocked investigation. 
The advocates of the tinder-box-and-peddler view 
considered the other side a muddle-headed and 
credulous set, who, because they themselves were 
wall-eyed, supposed everybody else to have the 
15 same blank outlook ; and the adherents of the in- 
explicable more than hinted that their antagonists 
were animals inclined to crow before they had 
found any corn — mere skimming-dishes in point of 
depth — whose clear-sightedness consisted in sup- 
20 posing there was nothing behind a barn-door be- 
cause they couldn’t see through it ; so that, though 
their controversy did not serve to elicit the fact 
concerning the robbery, it elicited some true 
opinions of collateral importance. 

25 But while poor Silas’s loss served thus to brush 
the slow current of Raveloe conversation, Silas him- 
self was feeling the withering desolation of that 
bereavement about which his neighbors were argu- 
ing at their ease. To anyone who had observed 

I. Christmas puddings. Rich plum puddings made in the shape of 
a sphere with a spring of holly on top 

I. Brawn. The fat of pork or boar’s meat. 

14. Wall-eyed Short-sighted or people with defective eyes. A 
wali-eye is one in w’hich the ins is very light-colored. 

18. Skimming dishes Shallow pans for taking the cream from the 
top of the milk 


SILAS MARNER. 


I 2 I 


him before he lost his gold, it might have seemed 
that so withered and shrunken a life as his could 
hardly be susceptible of a bruise, could hardly en- 
dure any subtraction but such as would put an end to 
it altbgetherc But in reality it had been an eager life, s 
filled with immediate purpose which fenced him in 
from the wide, cheerless unknown. It had been a 
clinging life ; and though the object round which its 
fibres had clung was a dead disrupted thing, it sat- 
isfied the need for clinging. But .now the fence was lo 
broken down — the support was snatched away. 

Marner’s thoughts could no longer move in their 
old round, and were baffled by a blank like that 
which meets a plodding ant when the earth has 
broken away on its homeward path. The loom was is 
there, and the weaving, and the growing pattern in 
the cloth ; but the bright treasure in the hole under 
his feet was gone ; the prospect of handling and 
counting it was gone : the evening had no phantasm 
of delight to still the poor soul’s craving. The 20 
thought of the money he would get by his actual 
work could bring no joy, for its meagre image was 
only a fresh reminder of his loss ; and hope was too 
heavily crushed by the sudden blow, for his imagin- 
ation to dwell on the growth of a new hoard from 25 
that small beginning. 

He filled up the blank with grief. As he sat 
weaving, he every now and then moaned low, like 
one in pain ; it was the sign that his thoughts had 
come round again to the sudden chasm — to the so 
empty evening time. And all the evening, as he 
sat in his loneliness by his dull fire, he leaned his 
elbows on his knees, and clasped his head with 
his hands, and moaned very low — not as one who 
seeks to be heard. 35 


122 


SILAS MARKER. 


And yet he was not utterly forsaken in his 
trouble. The repulsion Marner had always created 
in his neighbors was partly dissipated by the new 
light in which this misfortune had shown him. In- 
5 stead of a man who had more cunning than honest 
folks could come by, and, what was worse, had not 
the inclination to use that cunning in a neighborly 
way, it was now apparent that Silas had not cun- 
ning enough to keep his own. He was generally 
10 spoken of as a poor mushed creatur ” ; and that 
avoidance of his neighbors, which had before been 
referred to his ill-will and to a probable addiction 
to worse company, was now considered mere 
craziness. 

15 This change to a kindlier feeling was shown in 
various ways. The odor of Christmas cooking be- 
ing on the wind, it was the season when superfluous 
pork and black puddings are suggestive of charity 
in well-to-do families ; and Silas's misfortune had 
20 brought him uppermost in the memory of house- 
keepers like Mrs. Osgood. Mr. Crackenthorp, too, 
while he admonished Silas that his money had 
probably been taken from him because he thought 
too much of it and never came to church, enforced 
26 the doctrine by a present of pigs’ pettitoes, well cal- 
culated to dissipate unfounded prejudices against 
the clerical character. Neighbors who had nothing 
but verbal consolation to give showed a disposition 
not only to greet Silas and discuss his misfor- 
30 tune at some length when they encountered him in 
the village, but also to take the trouble of calling at 
his cottage and getting him to repeat all the details 
on the very spot ; and then they would try to cheer 

x8. Black puddings# A variety of sausage. 

25. Pigs’ Pettitoes. Pigs’ feet 


SILAS iMARNER- 


123 


him by saying, Well, Master Marner, you’re no 
worse off nor other poor folks, after all ; and if you 
was to be crippled, the parish 'ud give you a 
'lowance.” 

I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to » 
comfort our neighbors with our words is that our 
goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, 
before it can pass our lips. We can send black 
puddings and pettitoes, without giving them a flavor 
of our own egoism ; but language is a stream that 10 
is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. I’here 
was a fair proportion of kindness in Raveloe ; but it 
was often of a beery and bungling sort, and took 
the shape least allied to the complimentary and 
hypocritical. 15 

Mr. Macey, for example, coming one evening, 
expressly to let Silas know that recent events had 
given him the advantage of standing more favorably 
in the opinion of a man whose judgment was not 
formed lightly, opened the conversation by saying, 20 
as soon as he had seated himself and adjusted his 
thumbs ; 

‘‘ Come, Master Marner, why, you’ve no call to 
sit a-moaning. You’re a deal better off to ha’ lost 
your money, nor to ha’ kep’ it by foul means. 1 25 
used to think, when you first come into these parts, 
as you were no better nor you should be ; you were 
younger a deal than what you are now; but you 
were allays a staring, white-faced creatur, partly like 
a bald-faced calf, as I may say. But there’s nosa 
knowing : it isn’t every queer-looksed thing as Old 
Harry’s had the making of — I mean, speaking o’ 
toads and such ; for they’re often harmless, and 

10. Egoism. Compare this word with egotism, 

31. Queer-looksed. Queer looking. 


124 


SILAS MARKER. 


useful against varmin. And it’s pretty much the 
same vvi’ you, as fur as I can see. Though as to 
the yarbs and stuff to cure the breathing, if you 
brought that sort o’ knowledge from distant parts, 
5 you might ha’ been a bit freer of it. And if the 
knowledge wasn’t well come by, why, you might ha’ 
made up for it by coming to church reg’lar ; for as 
for the children as the Wise Woman charmed, I’ve 
been at the christening of ’em again and again, and 
10 they took the water just as well. And that’s reason- 
able ; for if Old Harry’s a mind to do a bit o’ kind- 
ness for a holiday, like, who’s got anything against 
it? That’s my thinking; and I’ve been clerk o’ 
this parish forty year, and I know, when the parson 
15 and me does the cussing of a Ash Wednesday, 
there’s no cussing o’ folks as have a mind to be 
cured without a doctor, let Kimble say what he will. 
And so. Master Marner, as I was saying — for there’s 
windings i’ things as they may carry you to the fur 
20 end o’ the prayer-book afore you get back to ’em 
— my advice is, as you keep up your sperrits ; for 
as for thinking you’re a deep un, and ha’ got more 
inside you nor ’ull bear daylight, I’m not o’ that 
opinion at all, and so I tell the neighbors. For, 
26 says I, you talk o’ Master Marner making out a tale 
— why, it’s nonsense, that is : it ’ud take a ’cute 
man to make a tale like that ; and, says I, he looked 
as scared as a rabbit.” 

During this discursive address Silas had continued 
30 motionless in his previous attitude, leaning his elbows 

15. Ash- Wednesday. The first day in Lent. The reference is no 
doubt to the Penitential Office used on that day. 

20. Prayer-book. The ritual of worship used in the Anglican 
Church The windings referred to are occasioned by the fact that the 
orders of Morning and Evening Prayer are printed in the beginning of the 
book, and the Psalter, to be used in connection with them, is placed at 
the end of the book. 


SILAS MARNER. 


125 


on his knees, and pressing his hands against his 
head. Mr. Macey, not doubting that he had been 
listened to, paused, in the expectation of some 
appreciatory reply, but Marner remained silent. 
He had a sense that the old man meant to be good- 
natured and neighborly ; but the kindness fell on 
him as sunshine falls on the wretched — he had no 
heart to taste it, and felt that it was very far off 
him . 

Come, Master Marner, have you got nothing to 
say to that? ” said Mr. Macey at last, with a slight 
accent of impatience. 

Oh,” said Marner, slowly, shaking his head 
between his hands, ‘‘I thank you — thank you — 
kindly.” 

Ay, ay, to be sure : 1 thought you would,” said 
Mr. Macey ; and my advice is — have you got a 
Sunday suit?” 

No,” said Marner. 

I doubted it was so,” said Mr. Macey. ^^Now, 
let me advise you to get a Sunday suit : there’s 
Tookey, he’s a poor creatur, but he’s got my tailor- 
ing business, and some o’ my money in it, and he 
shall make a suit at a low price, and give you trust, 
and then you can come to church and be a bit 
neighborly. Why, you’ve never heard me say 
‘ Amen ’ since you come into these parts, and I 
recommend you to lose no time, for it’ll be poor 
work when Tookey has it all to himself, for I mayn’t 
be equil to stand i’ the desk at all, come another 
winter.” 

Here Mr. Macey paused, perhaps expecting 
some sign of emotion in his hearer ; but not ob- 
serving any, he went on. And as for the money 
for the suit o’ clothes, why, you get the matter of a 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

30 

35 


126 


SILAS iMARNER. 


pound a-week at your weaving, Master Marner, and 
you’re a young man, eh, for all you look so mushed. 
Why, you couldn’t ha’ been five-and-twenty when 
you come into these parts, eh?” 

5 Silas started a little at the change to a question- 
ing tone, and answered mildly, I don’t know ; I 
can’t rightly say — it’s a long while since.” 

After receiving such an answer as this, it is not 
surprising that Mr. Macey observed, later on in the 
10 evening at the Rainbow, that Marner’s head was 
'‘all of a muddle,” and that it was to be doubted if 
he ever knew when Sunday came round, which 
showed him a worse heathen than many a dog. 

Another of Silas’s comforters, besides Mr. Macey, 
16 came to him with a mind highly charged on the 
same topic. This was Mrs. Winthrop, the wheel- 
wright’s wife. The inhabitants of Raveloe were 
not severely regular in their church-going, and per- 
haps there was hardly a person in the parish who 
20 would not have held that to go to church every 
Sunday in the calendar would have shown a greedy 
desire to stand well with Heaven, and get an undue 
advantage over their neighbors — a wish to be better 
than the "common run,” that would have implied 
25 a reflection on those who had had godfathers and 
godmothers as well as themselves, and had an equal 
right to the burying-service. At the same time it 
was understood to be requisite for all who were not 
household servants, or young men, to take the 
30 sacrament at one of the great festivals : Squire Cass 
himself took it on Christmas-day ; while those who 
were held to be "good-livers ” went to church with 
greater, though still with moderate, frequency. 

30. Great Festivals. Christmas, Easter and Michaelmas, or the 
feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, when, at least, all Churchmen are 
supposed to come to Holy Communion. 


SILAS MARNER. 


127 


Mrs. Winthrop was one of these : she was in all 
respects a woman of scrupulous conscience, so 
eager for duties that life seemed to offer them too 
scantily unless she rose at half-past four, though 
this threw a scarcity of work over the more 5 
advanced hours of the morning, which it was a 
constant problem with her to remove. Yet she 
had not the vixenish temper which is sometimes 
supposed to be a necessary condition of such habits ; 
she was a very mild, patient woman, whose nature 10 
it was to seek out all the sadder and more serious 
elements of life, and pasture her mind upon them. 
She was the person always first thought of in 
Raveloe when there was illness or death in the 
family, when leeches were to be applied, or there is 
was a sudden disappointment in a monthly* nurse. 
She was a comfortable woman ” — good-looking, 
fresh-complexioned, having her lips always slightly 
screwed, as if she felt herself in a sick-room with a 
doctor or the clergyman present. But she was 20 
never whimpering ; no one had seen her shed 
tears ; she was simply grave and inclined to shake 
her head and sigh, almost imperceptibly, like a 
funereal mourner who is not a relation. 

It seemed surprising that Ben Winthrop, who 26 
loved his quart-pot and his joke, got along so well 
with Dolly ; but she took her husband’s jokes and 
joviality as patiently as evervthing else, consider- 
ing that ‘^mcn would be so,” and viewing the 
stiongcr sex in the light of animals whom it had so 
]. leased Heaven to make naturally troublesome, like 
I'ldU and turkey-cocks. 

"rhis good, wholesome woman could hardly fail 
to have her mind drawn strongly towards Silas 
Marner, now that he appeared in the light of a 36 


128 


SILAS MARNER. 


sufferer ; and one Sunday afternoon she took her 
little boy Aaron with her, and went to call on Silas, 
carrying in her hand some small lard-cakes, flat, 
paste-like articles much esteemed in Raveloe. 

6 Aaron, an apple-cheeked youngster of seven, with 
a clean, starched frill which looked like a plate for 
the apples, needed all his adventurous curiosity to 
embolden him against the possibility that the big- 
eyed weaver might do him some bodily injury ; and 
10 his dubiety was much increased when, on arriving 
at the Stone-pits, they heard the mysterious sound 
of the loom. 

‘^Ah, it is as I thought,” said Mrs. Winthrop, 
sadly. 

16 They had to knock loudly before Silas heard 
them ; but when he did come to the door he showed 
no impatience, as he would once have done, at a 
visit that had been unasked for and unexpected. 
Formerly his heart had been as a locked casket 
20 with its treasure inside : but now the casket was 
empty, and the lock was broken. Left groping in 
darkness, with his prop utterly gone, Silas had in- 
evitably a sense, though a dull and half-despairing 
one, that if any help came to him it must come 
26 from without; and there was a slight stirring of 
expectation at the sight of his fellow-men, a faint 
consciousness of dependence on their good will. 
He opened the door wide to admit Dolly, but with- 
out otherwise returning her greeting than by 
30 moving the arm-chair a few inches as a sign that 
she was to sit down in it. Dolly, as soon as she 
was seated, removed the white cloth that covered 
her lard-cakes, and said in her gravest way : 

rd a baking yisterday. Master Marner, and the 

lo. Dubiety. Hesitation or confusion of mind. 


SILAS MARNER. 


I 29 

lard-cakes turned out better nor common, and I’d 
ha’ asked you to accept some, if you’d thought well. 

I don’t eat such things myself, for a bit o’ bread’s 
what I like from one year’s end to tne other; but 
men’s stomichs are made so comical, they want a 5 
change — they do, I know, God help ’em.” 

Dolly sighed gently as she held out the cakes to 
Silas, who thanked her kindly and looked very close 
at them, absently, being accustomed to look so at 
everything he took into his hand — eyed all the io 
while by the wondering bright orbs of the small 
Aaron, who had made an outwork of his mother’s 
chair, and was peeping round from behind it. 

‘‘There’s letters pricked on ’em,” said Dolly. 
“I can’t read ’em myself, and there’s nobody, noti^ 
Mr. Macey himself, rightly knows what they mean ; 
but they’ve a good meaning, for they’re the same 
as is on the pulpit cloth at church. What are they, 
Aaron, my dear? ” 

Aaron retreated completely behind his outwork. 20 

“Oh, go, that’s naughty,” said his mother, mildly. 
“Well, whativer the letters are, they’ve a good 
meaning ; and it’s a stamp as has been in our 
house, Ben says, ever since he was a little un, and 
his mother used to put it on the cakes, and I’ve 25 
allays put it on too ; for if there’s any good we’ve 
need of it i’ this world.” 

“ It’s 1. H. S.,” said Silas, at which proof of 
learning Aaron peeped round the chair again. 

12. Outwork A breastwork for defence in war. 

28. I. H S. These initials are a contrac ion of the Greek word for 
Jesus, ir/aovs. They have been used as a monogram in the Christian 
church for centuries, on altar-cloths and prayer-books, and, at a lime 
when Greek was little known, the letters came to have other meanings 
attached to them, as: Jesus Hominus Salvator, Jesus, Saviour of Men; 

In Hoc Signo, By this sign thou shalt conquer; In Hoc (cruce) Salus, 
In this (cross) is salvation. 


130 


SILAS MARNER. 


*‘Well, to be sure, you can read ’em off,” said 
Dolly. Ben’s read ’em to me many and many a 
time, but they slip out o’ my mind again ; the 
more’s the pity, for they’re good letters, else they 
® wouldn’t be in the church; and so I prick ’em on 
all the loaves and all the cakes, though sometimes 
they won’t hold because o’ the rising — for, as I 
said, if there’s any good to be got we’ve need of it 
i’ this world — that we have; and I hope they’ll 
10 bring good to you. Master Marner, for it’s wi’ that 
will I brought you the cakes ; and you see the let- 
ters have held better nor common.” 

Silas was as unable to interpret the letters as 
Dolly, but there was no possibility of misunder- 
15 standing the desire to give comfort that made itself 
heard in her quiet tones. He said, with more feel- 
ing than before — “ Thank you — thank you kindly.” 
But he laid down the cakes and seated himself 
absently — drearily unconscious of any distinct ben- 
20 efit towards which the cakes and the letters, or 
even Dolly’s kindness, could tend for him. 

** Ah, if there’s good anywhere, we’ve need of it,” 
repeated Dolly, who did not lightly forsake a ser- 
viceable phrase. She looked at Silas pityingly as 
25 she went on. 

But you didn’t hear the church-bells this morn- 
ing, Master Marner? I doubt you didn’t know it 
was Sunday. Living so lone here, you lose your 
count, I daresay ; and then when your loom makes 
30 a noise, you can’t hear the bells, more partic’lar 
now, the frost kills the sound.” 

^‘Yes, I did; I heard ’em,” said Silas, to whom 
Sunday bells were a mere accident of the day, and 
not part of its sacredness. There had been no bells 
35 in Lantern Yard. 


SILAS MARNER. 


I3I 

‘^Dear heart!” said Dolly, pausing before she 
spoke again. ‘‘ But what a pity it is you should 
work of a Sunday, and not clean yourself — if you 
go to church ; for if you’d a roasting bit, it 
might be as you couldn’t leave it, being a lone man. 6 
But there’s the bakehus, if you could make up your 
mind to spend a twopence on the oven now and 
then— not every week, in course — I shouldn’t like 
to do that myself — you might carry your bit o’ 
dinner there, for it’s nothing but right to have a 10 
bit o’ summat hot of a Sunday, and not to make it 
as you can’t know your dinner from Saturday. 
But now, upo’ Christmas Day, this blessed Christ- 
mas as is ever coming, if you was to take your 
dinner to the bakehus, and go to church, and see 
the holly and the yew, and hear the anthim, and 
then take the sacramen’, you’d be a deal the better, 
and you’d know which end you stood on, and you 
could put your trust i’ Them as knows better nor 
we do, seein’ you’d ha’ done what it lies on us all 20 
to do.” ^ 

Dolly’s exhortation, which was an unusually long 
effort of speech for her, was uttered in the soothing 
persuasive tone with which she would have tried to 
prevail on a sick man to take his medicine, or a 25 
basin of gruel for which he had no appetite. Silas 
had never before been closely urged on the point 
of his absence from church, which had only been 
thought of as a part of his general queerness ; and 
he was too direct and simple to evade Dolly’s 30 
appeal. 

6. Bakehus. Bakehouse; the European bakehouse differs from 
ours in that food can not only be bought there but can be carried there 
and cooked to order. 

16. Anthim Anthem ; an elaborate piece of choral mu^ic sometimes 
sung during the Offertory. 

17. Sacramen*. Sacrament. 


132 


SILAS MARNER. 


Nay, nay,” he said, ‘‘ I know nothing o’ church. 
I’ve never been to church.” 

No ! ” said Dolly, in a .ow tone of wonderment. 
Then, bethinking herself of Silas’s advent from an 
6 unknown country, she said, ‘‘Could it ha’ been as 
they’d no church where you was born? ” 

“Oh, yes,” said Silas, meditatively, sitting in his 
usual posture of leaning on his knees, and support- 
ing his head. “ There was churches — a many — it 
10 was a big town. But I knew nothing of ’em — I 
went to chapel.” 

Dolly was much puzzled at this new word, but 
she was rather afraid of inquiring further, lest 
“ chapel ” might mean some haunt of wickedness. 
15 After a little thought, she said : 

“ Well, Master Marner, it’s niver too late to turn 
over a new leaf, and if you’ve niver had no church, 
there’s no telling the good it’ll do you. For I feel 
so set up and comfortable as niver was, when I’ve 
20 been and heard the prayers, and the singing to the 
praise and glory o’ God, as Mr. Macey gives out — 
and Mr. Crackenthorp saying good words, and 
more partic’lar on Sacramen’ Day ; and if a bit o’ 
trouble comes, I feel as I can put up wi’ it, for I’ve 
25 looked for help i’ the right quarter, and gev myself 
up to Them as we must all give ourselves up to at 
the last ; and if we’n done our part, it isn’t to be 
believed as Them as are above us ’ull be worse nor 
we are, and come short o’ Their’n.” 

30 Poor Dolly’s exposition of her simple Raveloe 
theology fell rather unmeaningly on Silas’s ears, for 

II . Chapel In England dissenting meeting houses are called chapels 
to distinguish them from the church. 

31. Theology. Religious belief reduced to statements. Marner had 
no theology because his religion had been chiefly an emotion, which his 
mind was not capable of translating into thought. 


SILAS ]MARNER. 


133 


there was no word in it that could rouse a memory 
of what he had known as religion, and his com- 
prehension was quite baffled by the plural pronoun, 
which was no heresy of Dolly’s, but only her way of 
avoiding a presumptuous familiarity. He remained ^ 
silent, not feeling inclined to assent to the part of 
Dolly’s speech which he fully understood — her 
recommendation that he should go to church. 
Indeed, Silas was so unaccustomed to talk beyond 
the brief questions and answers necessary for the i® 
transaction of his simple business, that words *did 
not easily come to him without the urgency of a 
distinct purpose. 

But now, little Aaron, having become used to the 
weaver’s awful presence, had advanced to his 16 
mother’s side, and Silas, seeming to notice him for 
the first time, tried to return Dolly’s signs of good- 
will by offering the lad a bit of lard-cake. Aaron 
shrank back a little, and rubbed his head against 
his mother’s shoulder, but still thought the piece of 20 
cake worth the risk of putting his hand out for it. 

** Oh, for shame, Aaron,” said his mother, taking 
him on her lap, however ; why, you don’t want 
cake again yet awhile. He’s wonderful hearty,” 
she went on with a little sigh — ‘Uhat he is, God 26 
knows. He’s my youngest, and we spoil him 
sadly, for either me or the father must allays hev 
him in our sight — that we must.” 

She stroked Aaron’s brown head, and thought it 
must do Master Marner good to see such a pictur 3 o 
of a child.” But Marner, on the other side of the 
hearth, saw the neat-featured, rosy face as a mere 
dim round, with two dark spots in it. 


4. Heresy. Derived from the Greek word for other, and hence 
meaning a doctrine other than one contained in the creed of the Church. 


134 


SILAS MARNER. 


And he’s got a voice like a bird — you wouldn’t 
think,” Dolly went on ; he can sing a Christmas 
carril as his father’s taught him ; and I take it for 
a token as he’ll come to good, as he can learn the 
® good tunes so quick. Come, Aaron, stan’ up and 
sing the carril to Master Marner ; come.” 

Aaron replied by rubbing his forehead against his 
mother’s shoulder. 

“ Oh, that’s naughty,” said Dolly, gently. Stan’ 
10 up, when mother tells you, and let me hold the cake 
till you’ve done.” 

Aaron was not indisposed to display his talents, 
even to an ogre, under protecting circumstances ; 
and after a few more signs of coyness, consisting 
1^ chiefly in rubbing the backs of his hands over his 
eyes, and then peeping between them at Master 
Marner, to see if he looked anxious for the ‘‘carril,” 
he at length allowed his head to be duly adjusted, 
and standing behind the table, which let him 
20 appear above it only as far as his broad frill, so 
that he looked like a cherubic head untroubled 
with a body, he began with a clear chirp, and in a 
melody that had the rhythm of an industrious 
hammer : 


25 ** God rest you, merry gentlemen, 

Let nothing you dismay, 

For Jesus Christ our Saviour, 

Was born on Christmas day.” 

Dolly listened with a devout look, glancing at 
30 Marner in some confidence that this strain would 
help to allure him to church. 

“ That’s Christmas music,” she said, when Aaron 
had ended, and had secured his piece of cake 


3. Carril. Carol. 


SILAS MARKER. 


135 


again. ** There’s no other music equil to the 
Christmas music — ^ Hark the erol angels sing.’ 
And you may judge what it is at church, Master 
Marner, with the bassoon and the voices, as you 
can’t help thinking you’ve got to a better place 6 
a’ready — for I wouldn’t speak ill o’ this world, 
seeing as Them put us in it as knows best — but 
what wi’ the drink, and the quarreling, and 
the bad illnesses, and the hard dying, as I’ve 
seen times and times, one’s thankful to hear of le 
a better. The boy sings pretty, don’t he. Master 
Marner?” 

Yes,” said Silas, absently, '^very pretty.” 

The Christmas carol, with its hammer-like rhythm, 
had fallen on his ears as strange music, quite unlike 
a hymn, and could have none of the effect Dolly 
contemplated. But he wanted to show her that he 
was grateful, and the only mode that occurred to 
him was to offer Aaron a bit more cake. 

‘‘ Oh, no, thank you. Master Marner,” said Dolly, 20 
holding down Aaron’s willing hands. ‘‘ We must 
be going home now. And so I wish you good-bye. 
Master Marner ; and if you ever feel anyways bad 
in your inside, as you can’t fend for yourself. I’ll 
come and clean up for you, and get you a bit o’ 26 
victual, and willing. But I beg and pray of you to 
leave off weaving of a Sunday, for it’s bad for soul 
and body — and the money as comes i’ that way ’ull 
be a bad bed to lie down on at the last, if it doesn’t 
fly away, nobody knows where, like the white frost. 30 
And you'll excuse me being that free with you, 

2. Hark the erol Herald. Another old hymn, set to the well- 
known music of Mendelssohn. 

24. Fend. That is defend, care for. 

30. White-frost. Frost in which the rime, or tiny ice needles, are 
visible. 


136 


SILAS MARNER. 


Master Marner, for I wish you well — I do. Make 
your bow, Aaron.” 

Silas said Good-bye, and thank you kindly,” as 
he opened the door for Dolly, but he couldn’t help 
6 feeling relieved when she was gone — relieved that 
he might weave again and moan at his ease. Her 
simple view of life and its comforts, by which she 
had tried to cheer him, was only like a report of 
unknown objects, which his imagination could not 
10 fashion. The fountains of human love and of faith 
in a divine love had not yet been unlocked, and his 
soul was still the shrunken rivulet, with only this 
difference, that its little groove of sand was blocked 
up, and it wandered confusedly against dark 
15 obstruction. 

And so, notwithstanding the honest persuasions 
of Mr. Macey and Dolly Winthrop, Silas spent his 
Christmas day in loneliness, eating his meat in sad- 
ness of heart, though the meat had come to him as 
20 a neighborly present. In the morning he looked 
out on the black frost that seemed to press cruelly 
on every blade of grass, while the half-icy red pool 
shivered under the bitter wind : but towards even- 
ing the snow began to fall, and curtained from him 
25 even that dreary outlook, shutting him close up 
with his narrow grief. And he sat in his robbed 
home through the livelong evening, not caring to 
close his shutters or lock his door, pressing his head 
between his hands and moaning, till the cold 
30 grasped him and told him that his fire was gray. 

Nobody in this world but himself knew that he 
was the same Silas Marner who had once loved his 
fellow with tender love, and trusted in an unseen 
goodness. Even to himself that past experience 
had become dim. 

30 


SILAS MARNER. 


137 


But in Raveloe village the bells rang merrily, and 
the church was fuller than all through the rest of 
the year, with red faces among the abundant dark- 
green boughs — faces prepared for a longer service 
than usual by an odorous breakfast of toast and ale. i 
Those green boughs, the hymn and anthem never 
heard but at Christmas — even the Athanasian 
Creed, which was discriminated from the others 
only as being longer and of exceptional virtue, 
since it was only read on rare occasions — brought 
a vague exulting sense, for which the grown men 
could as little have found words as the children, 
that something great and mysterious had been done 
for them in heaven above and in earth below, which 
they were appropriating by their presence. And^® 
then the red faces made their way through the black, 
biting frost to their own homes, feeling themselves 
free for the rest of the day to eat, drink, and be 
merry, and using that Christian freedom without 
diffidence. 20 

At Squire Cass’s lamily party that day nobody 
mentioned Dunstan — nobody was sorry for his 
absence, or feared it would be too long. The 
doctor and his wife, uncle and aunt Kimble, were 
there, and the annual Christmas talk was carried 25 
through without any omissions, rising to the climax 
of Mr. Kimble’s experience when he walked the 
London hospitals thirty years back, together with 
striking professional anecdotes then gathered. 
Whereupon cards followed, with aunt Kimble’s^ 
annual failure to follow suit, and uncle Kimble’s 

7. Athanasian Creed. A creed of unknown authorship formerly 
ascribed to St Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (296-373), because it 
was through his efforts that the doctrines, of which the creed is a state- 
ment, were preserved uncontaminated to the church This creed, while 
printed in the English prayer-book, is seldom used except on certain 
specified occasions. 


138 


SILAS MARKER. 


irascibility concerning the odd trick which was 
rarely explicable to him, when it was not on his 
side, without a general visitation of tricks to see 
that they were formed on sound principles : the 
6 whole being accompanied by a strong, steaming 
odor of spirits-and-water. 

But the party on Christmas Day, being a strictly 
family party, was not the pre-eminently brilliant 
celebration of the season at the Red House. It 
10 was the great dance on New Year’s Eve that made 
the glory of Squire Cass’s hospitality, as of his fore- 
fathers’, time out of mind. This was the occasion 
when all the society of Raveloe and Tarley, whether 
old acquaintances separated by long, rutty distances, 
15 or cooled acquaintances separated by misunder- 
standings concerning runaway calves, or acquaint- 
ances founded on intermittent condescension, 
counted on meeting and on comporting themselves 
with mutual appropriateness. This was the occasion 
20 on which fair dames who came on pillions sent 
their band boxes before them, supplied with more 
than their evening costume ; for the feast was not 
to end with a single evening, like a paltry town 
entertainment, where the whole supply of eatables 
25 is put on the table at once, and bedding is scanty. 
The Red House was provisioned as if for a siege ; 
and as for the spare feather-beds ready to be laid 
on floors, they were as plentiful as might naturally 
be expected in a family that had killed its own 
30 geese for many generations. 

Godfrey Cass was looking forward to this New 
Year’s Eve with a foolish, reckless longing, that 
made him half deaf to his importunate companion. 
Anxiety. 

21. Band-boxes In which they carried their caps. 


SILAS MARNER. 


139 


Dunsey will be coming home soon ; there will 
be a great blow-up, and how will you bribe his spite 
to silence?” said Anxiety. 

** Oh, he won’t come home before New Year’s 
Eve, perhaps,” said Godfrey ; and I shall sit by « 
Nancy then, and dance with her, and get a kind 
look from her in spite of herself.” 

But money is wanted in another quarter,” said 
Anxiety, in a louder voice, ‘‘and how will you get it 
without selling your mother’s diamond pin ? And 10 
if you don’t get it . . . ? ” 

“ Well, but something may happen to make 
things easier. At any rate, there’s one pleasure for 
me close at hand : Nancy is coming.” 

“ Yes, and suppose your father should bring is 
matters to a pass that will oblige you to decline 
marrying her — and to give your reasons? ” 

“ Hold your tongue, and don’t worry me. I 
can see Nancy’s eyes, just as they will look at me, 
and feel her hand in mine already.” 20 

But Anxiety went on, though in noisy Christmas 
company; refusing to be utterly quieted even by 
much drinking. 


CHAPTER XI. 

Some women, I grant, would not appear to ad- 
vantage seated on a pillion, and attired in a drab 25 
Joseph and a drab beaver bonnet, with a crown 
resembling a small stew-pan ; for a garment suggest- 
ing a coachman’s greatcoat, cut out under an 
exiguity of cloth that would only allow of miniature 
capes is not well adapted to conceal deficiencies of 30 

26. Joseph. A riding habit, somewhat resembling the present auto- 
mobile coat, with one or more capes. 

29. Exiguity. Scantiness. 


140 


SILAS MARNER. 


contour, nor is drab a color that will throw sallow 
checks into lively contrast. It was all the greater 
triumph to Miss Nancy Lammeter’s beauty that 
she looked thoroughly bewitching in that costume, 
6 as, seated on the pillion behind her tall, erect 
father, she held one arm round him, and looked 
down, with open-eyed anxiety, at the treacherous 
snow-covered pools and puddles, which sent up 
formidable splashings of mud under the stamp of 
10 Dobbin’s foot. 

A painter would, perhaps, have preferred her in 
those moments when she was free from self-con- 
sciousness ; but certainly the bloom on her cheeks 
was at its highest point of contrast with the sur- 
16 rounding drab when she arrived at the door of the 
Red House, and saw Mr. Godfrey Cass ready to 
lift her from the pillion. She wished her sister 
Priscilla had come up at the same time behind the 
servant, for then she would have contrived that 
20 Mr. Godfrey should have lifted off Priscilla first, 
and, in the meantime, she would have persuaded 
her father to go round to the horse-block instead 
of alighting at the doorsteps. 

It was very painful, when you had made it quite 
25 clear to a young man that you were determined not 
to marry him, however much he might wish it, that 
he would still continue to pay you marked atten- 
tions ; besides, why didn’t he always show the same 
attentions, if he meant them sincerely, instead of 
30 being so strange as Mr. Godfrey Cass was, some- 
times behaving as if he didn’t want to speak to her, 
and taking no notice of her for weeks and weeks, 
and then, all on a sudden, almost making love 
again? Moreover it was quite plain he had no 
Zb real love for her, else he would not let people have 


SILAS MARNER. 


I4I 

that to say of him which they did say. Did he 
suppose that Miss Nancy Lammeter was to be won 
by any man, squire or no squire, who led a bad 
life ? That was not what she had been used to see 
in her own father, who was the soberest and best s 
man in that country-side, only a little hot and hasty 
now and then, if things were not done to the 
minute. 

All these thoughts rushed through Miss Nancy’s 
mind, in their habitual succession, in the moments 10 
between her first sight of Mr. Godfrey Cass stand- 
ing at the door and her own arrival there. Happily, 
the Squire came out, too, and gave a loud greeting 
to her father, so that, somehow, under cover of 
this noise she seemed to find concealment for her 15 
confusion and neglect of any suitably formal be- 
havior, while she was being lifted from the pillion 
by strong arms which seemed to find her ridicu- 
lously small and light. And there was the best 
reason for hastening into the house at once, since 20 
the snow was beginning to fall again, threatening 
an unpleasant journey for such guests as were still 
on the road. These were a small minority ; for 
already the afternoon was beginning to decline, and 
there would not be too much time for the ladies 25 
who came from a distance to attire themselves in 
readiness for the early tea which was to inspirit 
them for the dance. 

There was a buzz of voices through the house, 
as Miss Nancy entered, mingled with the scrape oi^ 
a fiddle preluding in the kitchen ; but the Lam- 
meters were guests whose arrival had evidently 
been thought of so much that it had been watched 


31. Preluding. A short introduction to a piece of music, supposed to 
put the listener in the proper mood. 


142 


SILAS MARNER. 


for from the windows, for Mrs. Kimble, who did 
the honors at the Red House on these great occa- 
sions, came forward to meet Miss Nancy in the 
hall, and conduct her upstairs. Mrs. Kimble was 
h the Squire’s sister, as well as the doctor’s wife — a 
double dignity, with which her diameter was in 
direct proportion ; so that, a journey upstairs being 
rather fatiguing to her, she did not oppose Miss 
Nancy’s request to be allowed to find her way alone 
10 to the Blue Room, where the Miss Lammeters’ 
bandboxes had been deposited on their arrival in 
the morning. > 

There was hardly a bedroom in the house where 
feminine compliments were not passing and femi- 
16 nine toilettes going forward, in various stages, in 
space made scanty by extra beds spread upon the 
floor ; and Miss Nancy, as she entered the Blue 
Room, had to make her little formal curtsy to a 
group of six. On the one hand, there were ladies 
20 no less important than the two Miss Gunns, the 
wine merchant’s daughters from Lytherly, dressed 
in the height of fashion, with the tightest skirts and 
the shortest waists, and gazed at by Miss Ladbrook 
(of the Old Pastures) with a shyness not unsus- 
25 tained by inward criticism. Partly, Miss Ladbrook 
felt that her own skirt must be regarded as unduly 
lax by the Miss Gunns, and partly, that it was a 
pity the Miss Gunns did not show that judgment 
which she herself would show if she were in their 
30 place, by stopping a little on this side of the 
fashion. On the other hand, Mrs. .Ladbrook was 
standing in skull-cap and front, with her turban in 
her hand, curtsying and smiling blandly and say- 

32. Skull-cap and front . A piece of false hair. 

32. Turban. A huge cap worn by eighteenth century ladies. 


SILAS MARNER. 


143 


ing, After you ma’am,” to another lady in similar 
circumstances, who had politely offered the pre- 
cedence at the looking-glass. 

But Miss Nancy had no sooner made her curtsy 
than an elderly lady came forward, whose full white 5 
muslin kerchief, and mob-cap round her curls of 
smooth gray hair, were in daring contrast with 
the puffed yellow satins and top-knotted caps 
of her neighbors. She approached Miss Nancy 
with much primness, and said, with a slow, treble 10 
suavity : 

‘‘ Niece, I hope I see you well in health.” 

Miss Nancy kissed her aunt’s cheek dutifully, 
and 'answered, with the same sort of amiable prim- 
ness, ** Quite well, I thank you, aunt ; and I hope is 
I see you the same.” 

Thank you, niece ; I keep my health for the 
present. And how is my brother-in-law?” 

These dutiful questions and answers were con- 
tinued until it was ascertained in detail that the 20 
Lam meters were all as well as usual, and the 
Osgoods likewise, also that niece Priscilla must 
certainly arrive shortly, and that traveling on pil- 
lions in snowy weather was unpleasant, though a 
joseph was a great protection. Then Nancy was 26 
formally introduced to her aunt’s visitors, the Miss 
Gunns, as being the daughter of a mother known 
to their mother, though now for the first time in- 
duced to make a journey into these parts ; and 
these ladies were so taken by surprise at finding 30 
such a lovely face and figure in an out-of-the-way 
country place, that they began to feel some curi- 
osity about the dress she would put on when she 
took off her joseph. 

6. Mob-cap. A plain cap with a frill about the edge. 


144 


SILAS MARKER. 


Miss Nancy, whose thoughts were always con- 
ducted with the propriety and moderation conspic- 
uous in her manners, remarked to herself that the 
Miss Gunns were rather hard-featured than oiher- 
6 wise, and that such very low dresses as they wore 
might have been attributed to vanity if their shoul- 
ders had been pretty, but that, being as they were 
it was not reasonable to suppose that they showed 
their necks from a love of display, but rather from 
iosome obligation not inconsistent with sense and 
modesty. She felt convinced, as she opened her 
box, that this must be her aunt Osgood’s opinion, 
for Miss Nancy’s mind resembled her aunt’s to a 
degree that everybody said was surprising,' con- 
16 sidering the kinship was on Mr. Osgood’s side ; and 
though you might not have supposed it from the 
formality of their greeting, there was a devoted 
attachment and mutual admiration between aunt 
and niece. Even Miss Nancy’s refusal of her 
20 cousin Gilbert Osgood (on the ground solely that 
he was her cousin), though it had grieved her aunt 
greatly, had not in the least cooled the preference 
which had determined her to leave Nancy several 
of her hereditary ornaments, let Gilbert’s future 
26 wife be whom she might. 

Three of the ladies quickly retired, but the Miss 
Gunns were quite content that Mrs. Osgood’s in- 
clination to remain with her niece gave them also 
a reason for staying to see the rustic beauty’s 
30 toilette. And it was really a pleasure — from the 
first opening of the bandbox, where everything 
smelt of lavender and rose-leaves, to the clasping of 
the small coral necklace that fitted closely round 
her little white neck. 

Everything belonging to Miss Nancy was of 


3 ) 


SILAS MARNER. 


M5 


delicate purity and nattiness : not a crease was 
where it had no business to be, not a bit of her 
linen professed whiteness without fulfilling its pro- 
fession ; the very pins on her pincushion were 
stuck in after a pattern from which she w^as careful 6 
to allow no aberration ; and as for her own person, 
it gave the same idea of perfect, unvarying neatness 
as the body of a little bird. 

It is true that her light-brown hair was cropped 
behind like a boy's, and was dressed in front in a lo 
number of flat rings, that lay quite away from her 
face ; but there was no sort of coiffure that could 
make Miss Nancy’s cheek and neck look otherwise 
than pretty ; and when at last she stood complete 
in her silvery twilled silk, her lace tucker, her coral 
necklace, and coral ear-drops, the Miss Gunns could 
see nothing to criticise except her hands, which 
bore the traces of butter-making, cheese-crushing, 
and even still coarser work. But Miss Nancy was 
not ashamed of that, for while she was dressing she 20 
narrated to her aunt how she and Priscilla had 
packed their boxes yesterday, because this morning 
was baking morning, and since they were leaving 
home, it was desirable to make a good supply of 
meat-pies for the kitchen; and as she concluded 25 
this judicious remark, she turned to the Miss Gunns 
that she might not commit the rudeness of not 
including them in the conversation. 

The Miss Gunns smiled stiffly, and thought what 
a pity it was that these rich country people, who so 
could afford to buy such good clothes (really Miss 
Nancy’s lace and silk were very costly), should be 

1. Nattiness. Neatness and precision. 

5. Pattern . . . aberration. A pattern that she never va«ed. 

la. Coiffure. The French word for head-dress. 


146 


SILAS MARNER. 


brought up in utter ignorance and vulgarity. She 
actually said ‘‘mate” for “meat,” “’appen” for 
“ perhaps,” and “ oss ” for “ horse,” which, to 
young ladies living in good Lytherly society, who 
6 habitually said 'orse, even in domestic privacy, and 
only said ’appen on the right occasions, was neces- 
sarily shocking. 

Miss Nancy, indeed, had never been to any 
school higher than Dame Tedman’s ; her acquaint- 
loance with profane literature hardly went beyond 
the rhymes she had worked in her large sampler 
under the lamb and the shepherdess ; and in order 
to balance an account, she was obliged to effect her 
subtraction by removing visible metallic shillings 
15 and sixpences from a visible metallic total. 

There is hardly a servant-maid in these days 
who is not better informed than Miss Nancy ; yet 
she had the essential attributes of a lady — high 
veracity, delicate honor in her dealings, deference to 
20 others and refined personal habits — and lest these 
should not suffice to convince grammatical fair 
ones that her feelings can at all resemble theirs, I 
will add that she was slightly proud and exacting, 
and as constant in her affection towards a baseless 
25 opinion as towards an erring lover. 

The anxiety about sister Priscilla, which had 
grown rather active by the time the coral necklace 
was clasped, was happily ended by the entrance 
of that cheerful-looking lady herself, with a face 
30 made blowsy by cold and damp. After the first 

8. To Is this good usage? 

10. Profane. Not in any bad sense, but merely as opposed to sacred 
literature. 

II Sampler. A piece of cloth on which samples of various stitches, 
plain and fancy, were worked ; named from the Latin exemplar, 

30. Blowsy. Ruddy. 


SILAS MARNER. 


147 


questions and greetings, she turned to Nancy, and 
surveyed her from head to foot — then wheeled her 
round, to ascertain that the back view was equally 
faultless. 

‘‘ What do you think o’ these gowns, aunt 5 
Osgood?” said Priscilla, while Nancy helped her 
to unrobe. 

‘‘ Very handsome indeed, niece,” said Mrs. 
Osgood, with a slight increase of formality. She 
always thought niece Priscilla too rough. 10 

“ I’m obliged to have the same as Nancy, you 
know, for all I’m five years older, and it makes me 
look yallow ; for she never will have anything with- , 
out I have mine just like it, because she wants us 
to look like sisters. And 1 tell her, folks ’ull think 15 
it’s my weakness makes me fancy as I shall look 
pretty in what she looks pretty in. For I am ugly 
— there’s no denying that ; I feature my father’s 
family. But law ! I don’t mind, do you? ” Pris- 
cilla here turned to the Miss Gunns, rattling on in 20 
too much preoccupation with the delight of talking, 
to notice that her candor was not appreciated. 
“The pretty uns do for fly-catchers — they keep 
the men off us. I’ve no opinion o’ the men. Miss 
Gunn — I don’t know y^hdityou have. And as for 25 
fretting and stewing about what thefW think of you 
from morning till night, and making your life un- 
easy about what they’re doing when they’re out o' 
your sight — as I tell Nancy, it’s a folly no woman 
need be guilty of, if she’s got a good father and a 30 
good home ; let her leave it to them as have got no 
fortin, and can’t help themselves. As I say, Mro 
Have-your-own-way is the best husband, and the 
only one I’d ever promise to obey. I know it isn’t 

18. Feature. Colloquial for resemble. 


148 


SILAS MARNER. 


pleasant, when you’ve been used to living in a big 
way, and managing hogsheads and all that, to go 
and put your nose in by somebody else’s fireside, or 
to sit down by yourself to a scrag or a knuckle ; 
6 but, thank God ! my father’s a sober man and 
likely to live ; and if you’ve got a man by the 
chimney-corner, it doesn’t matter if he’s childish— 
the business needn’t be broke up.” 

The delicate process of getting her narrow gown 
10 over her head without injury to her smooth curls, 
obliged Miss Priscilla to pause in this rapid survey 
of life, and Mrs. Osgood seized the opportunity of 
rising and saying : 

''Well, niece, you’ll follow us. The Miss Gunns 
i*»will like to go down.” 

" Sister,” said Nancy, when they were alone, 
'' you’ve offended the Miss Gunns, I’m sure.” 

"What have I done, child?” said Priscilla, in 
some alarm. 

20 Why, you asked them if they minded about 
being ugly- — you’re so very blunt.” 

" Law, did I? Well it popped out : it’s a mercy 
I said no more, for I’m a bad un to live with folks 
when they don’t like the truth. But as for being 
25 ugly, look at me, child, in this silver-colored silk — 
I told you how it ’ud be — I look as yallow as a 
daffodil. Anybody ’ud say you wanted to make a 
mawkin of me.” 

" No, Priscy^ don’t say so. I begged and 
prayed of you not to let us have this silk if you’d 
like another better. I was willing to hsive your 
choice, you know I was,” said Nancy, in anxious 
selTvindicatioiio 

4. Scrag. A lean piece ot meat like a neck of mutton. 

4. Knuckle, The knee-joint of veal. 

28. Mawkin. A scare crow of rags. 


SILAS MARNE R. 


149 


Nonsense, child ! you know you^d set your 
heart on this; and reason good, for you’re the color • 
o’ cream. It ’ud be fine doings for you to dress 
yourself to suit my skin. What I find fault with, is 
that notion o’ yours as 1 must dress myself just like & 
you. But you do as you like with me — you always 
did, from when first you begun to walk. If you 
wanted to go the field’s length, the field’s length 
you’d go ; and there was no whipping you, for you 
looked as prim and innicent as a daisy all the 10 
while.” 

Priscy,” said Nancy, gently, as she fastened a 
coral necklace, exactly like her own, round Pris- 
cilla’s neck, which was very far from being like her 
own, I’m sure I’m willing to give way as far as is 16 
right, but who shouldn’t dress alike if it isn’t 
sisters? Would you have us go about looking as if 
w^e were no kin to one another — us that have got no 
mother and not another sister in the world? I’d 
do what was right, if I dressed in a gown dyed with 20 
cheese coloring ; and I’d rather you’d choose, and 
let me wear what pleases you.” 

There you go again ! You’d come round to the 
same thing if one talked to you from Saturday 
night till Saturday morning. It’ll be fine fun to see 25 
how you’ll master your husband and never raise 
your voice above the singing o’ the kettle all the 
while. I like to see the men mastered ! ” 

Don’t talk so, Priscy,” said Nancy, blushing. 

You know I don’t mean ever to be married.” 30 
Oh, you never mean a fiddlestick’s end ! ” said 
Priscilla, as she arranged her discarded dress, and 
closed her bandbox. Who shall / have to work 
for when father’s gone, if you are to go and take 
notions in your head and be an old maid, because 36 


SILAS MARNER. 


150 

some folks are no better than they should be? I 
haven’t a bit o’ patience with you — sitting on an 
addled egg forever, as if there was never a fresh ’un 
in the world. One old maid’s enough out o’ two 
5 sisters ; and I shall do credit to a single life, for 
God A’mighty meant me for it. Come, we can go 
down now. I’m as ready as a mawkin can be — 
there’s nothing a-wanting to frighten the crows, 
now I’ve got my ear-droppers in.” 

10 As the two Miss Lammeters walked into the 
large parlor together, anyone who did not know the 
character of both might certainly have supposed 
that the reason why the square-shouldered, clumsy, 
high-featured Priscilla wore a dress the fac-simile 
16 of her pretty sister’s, was either the mistaken vanity 
of the one, or the malicious contrivance of the 
other in order to set off her own rare beauty. But 
the good-natured, self-forgetful cheeriness and 
common-sense of Priscilla would soon have dissi- 
20 pated the one suspicion ; and the modest calm of 
Nancy’s speech and manners told clearly of a mind 
free from all disavowed devices. 

Places of honor had been kept for the Miss 
Lammeters near the head of the principal tea- 
26 table in the wainscoted parlor, now looking fresh 
and pleasant with handsome branches of holly, yew, 
and laurel, from the abundant growths of the old 
garden ; and Nancy felt an inward flutter, that no 
firmness of purpose could prevent, when she saw 
30 Mr. Godfrey Cass advancing to lead her to a seat 
between himself and Mr. Crackenthorp, while Pris- 
cilla was called to the opposite side between her 
father and the Squire. 

It certainly did make sc ne difference to Nancy 

9 Ear-droppers. Ear-rings with long pendants much worn at the 
time 


SILAS MARNER. 


151 

that the lover she had given up was the young man 
of quite the highest consequence in the parish — at 
home in a venerable and unique parlor, which 
was the extremity of grandeur in her experience, a 
parlor where she might one day have been mistress, 5 
with the consciousness that she was spoken of as 

Madame Cass,’’ the Squire’s wife. 

These circumstances exalted her inward drama in 
her own eyes, and deepened the emphasis with 
which she declared to herself that not the most 10 
dazzling rank should induce her to marry a man 
whose conduct showed him careless of his charac- 
ter, but that ‘Move once, love always,” was the 
motto of a true and pure woman, and no man 
should ever have any right over her which would be 
a call on her to destroy the dried flowers that she 
treasured, and always would treasure, for Godfrey 
Cass’s sake. And Nancy was capable of keeping 
her word to herself under very trying conditions. 
Nothing but a becoming blush betrayed the moving 20 
thoughts that urged themselves upon her as she 
accepted the seat next to Mr. Crackenthorp ; for 
she was so instinctively neat and adroit in all her 
actions, and her pretty lips met each other with 
such quiet firmness, that it would have been diffi- 26 
cult for her to appear agitated. 

It was not the Rector’s practice to let a charming 
blush pass without an appropriate compliment. 
He was not in the least lofty or aristocratic, but 
simply a merry-eyed, small-featured, gray-haired so 
man, with his chin propped by an ample, many- 
creased white neckcloth which seemed to pre- 
dominate over every other point in his person, and 
somehow to impress its peculiar character on his 
remarks; so that to have considered his amenities 


152 


SILAS IMARNER. 


apart from his cravat would have been a severe, 
and perhaps a dangerous, effort of abstraction. 

Ha, Miss Nancy,” he said, turning his head 
within his cravat and smiling down pleasantly upon 
5 her, when anybody pretends this has been a 
severe winter, I shall tell them I saw the roses 
blooming on New Year’s Eve — eh, Godfrey, what 
do you say ? ” 

Godfrey made no reply, and avoided looking at 
10 Nancy very markedly ; for though these com- 
plimentary personalities were held to be in excel- 
lent taste in old-fashioned Raveloe society, reverent 
love has a politeness of its own which it teaches to 
men otherwise of small schooling. But the Squire 
15 was rather impatient at Godfrey’s showing himself 
a dull spark in this way. By this advanced hour of 
the day, the Squire was always in higher spirits than 
we have seen him in at the breakfast-table, and felt 
it quite pleasant to fulfil the hereditary duty of 
20 being noisily jovial and patronizing : the large 
silver snuff-box was in active service and was 
offered without fail to all neighbors from time to 
time, however often they might have declined the 
favor. 

25 At present, the Squire had only given an express 
welcome to the heads of families as they ap- 
peared ; but alw^ays as the evening deepened, his 
hospitality rayed out more widely, till he had 
tapped the youngest guests on the back and shown 
30 a peculiar fondness for their presence, in the full 
belief that they must feel their lives made happy by 
their belonging to a parish where there was such a 
hearty man as Squire Cass to invite them and wish 
them well. Even in this early stage of the jovial 

r6. Spark. Slang for a lively, fast fellow. 


SILAS MARKER. 


153 


mood, it was natural that he should wish to supply 
his son’s deficiencies by looking and speaking for 
him. 

‘‘Ay, ay,” he began, offering his snuff-box to 
Mr. Lammeter, who, for the second time, bowed 5 
his head and waved his hand in stiff rejection of 
the offer, “ us old fellows may wish ourselves young 
to-night, when we see the mistletoe-bough in the 
White Parlor. It’s true, most things are gone 
back’ard in these last thirty years — the country’s 10 
going down since the old king fell ill. But when I 
look at Miss Nancy here, 1 begin to think the 
lasses keep up their quality ; ding me if I remem- 
ber a sample to match her, not when I was a fine • 
young fellow, and thought a deal about my pigtail, is 
No offence to you, madam,” he added, bending to 
Mrs. Crackenthorp, who sat by him, “ I didn’t 
know you when you were as young as Miss Nancy 
here.” 

Mrs. Crackenthorp — a small, blinking woman, 20 
who fidgeted incessantly with her lace, ribbons, and 
gold chain, turning her head about and making 
subdued noises, very much like a guinea-pig that 
twitches its nose and soliloquizes in all company 
indiscriminately — now blinked and fidgeted towards 25 
the Squire, and said, “ Oh, no — no offence.” 

This emphatic compliment of the Squire’s to 
Nancy was felt by others besides Godfrey to have 
a diplomatic significance ; and her father gave a 
f light additional erectness to his back, as he looked so 
across the table at her with complacent gravity, 
'rhat grave and orderly senior was not going to bate 
a jot of his dignity by seeming elated at the notion 

13. Ding. A softened form of “ damn.” 

15. Pigtail, Men wore their hair braided into a queue even at this 

d'Uc . 


154 


SILAS MARNER. 


of a match between his family and the Squire’s : he 
was gratified by any honor paid to his daughter ; 
but he must see an alteration in several ways before 
his consent would be vouchsafed. His spare but 
6 healthy person, and high-featured, firm face, that 
looked as if it had never been flushed by excess, 
was in strong contrast, not only with the Squire’s, 
but with the appearance of the Raveloe farmers 
generally — in accordance with a favorite saying of 
10 his own, that ** breed was stronger than pasture.” 

** Miss Nancy’s wonderful like what her mother 
was, though; isn’t she, Kimble?” said the stout 
lady of that name, looking round for her husband. 

But Dr. Kimble (country apothecaries in old days 
16 enjoyed that title without authority of diploma), 
being a thin and agile man, was flitting about 
the room with his hands in his pockets, making 
himself agreeable to his feminine patients, with 
medical impartiality, and being welcomed evcry- 
20 where as a doctor by hereditary right — not one of 
those miserable apothecaries who canvas for prac- 
tice in strange neighborhoods, and spend all their 
income in starving their one horse, but a man of 
substance, able to keep an extravagant table like 
25 the best of his patients. Time out of mind the 
Raveloe doctor had been a Kimble ; Kimble was 
inherently a doctor’s name ; and it was difficult to 
contemplate firmly the melancholy fact that the 
actual Kimble had no son, so that his practice 
80 might one day be handed over to a successor with 
the incongruous name of Taylor or Johnson. But 
in that case the wiser people in Raveloe would 
employ Dr. Blick of Flitton — as less unnatural. 

Did you speak to me, my dear?” said the 
85 authentic doctor, coming quickly to his wife’s side ; 


SILAS MARNER. 


155 


but, as if foreseeing that she would be too much 
out of breath to repeat her remark, he went on 
immediately — Ha, Miss Priscilla, the sight of you 
revives the taste of that super-excellent pork-pie. 

I hope the batch isn’t near an end.” ® 

‘‘ Yes, indeed, it is, doctor,” said Priscilla ; but 
ril answer for it the next shall be as good. My 
pork-pies don’t turn out well by chance.” 

Not as your doctoring does, eh, Kimble ! — 
because folks forget to take your physic, eh ? ” said 
the Squire, who regarded physic and doctors as 
many loyal churchmen regard the church and the 
clergy — tasting a joke against them when he was in 
health, but impatiently eager for their aid when 
anything was the matter with him. He tapped his 
box, and looked round with a triumphant laugh. 

‘‘Ah, she has a quick wit, my friend Priscilla 
has,” said the doctor, choosing to attribute the epi' 
gram to a lady rather than allow a brother-in-law 
that advantage over him. “She saves a little 20 
pepper to sprinkle over her talk — that’s the reason 
why she never puts too much into her pies. There’s 
my wife, now, she never has an answer at her 
tongue’s end ; but if I offend her, she’s sure to 
scarify my throat with black pepper the next day, 24 
or else give me the colic with watery greens. 
That’s an awful tit-for-tat.” Here the vivacious 
doctor made a pathetic grimace. 

“Did you ever hear the like?” said Mrs. 
Kimble, laughing above her double chin with much 3# 
good-humor, aside to Mrs. Crackenthorp, who 
blinked and nodded, and amiably intended to 
smile, but the intention lost itself in small twitch- 
ings and noises. 

25. Scarify. Burn, cauterize. 


156 


SILAS MARNER. 


I suppose that’s the sort of tit-for-tat adopted 
in your profession, Kimble, if you’ve a grudge 
against a patient,” said the rector. 

Never do have a grudge against our patients,” 
s said Mr. Kimble, except when they leave us : 
and then, you see, we haven’t the chance of pre- 
scribing for ’em. Ha, Miss Nancy,” he continued, 
suddenly skipping to Nancy’s side, ‘‘you won’t for- 
get your promise ? You’re to save a dance for me, 

JO you know.” 

“ Come, come, Kimble, don’t you be too for’ard,” 
said the Squire. “ Give the young uns fair-play. 
There’s my son Godfrey ’ll be wanting to have a 
round with you if you run off with Miss Nancy. 

16 He’s bespoke her for the first dance. I’ll be bound. 
Eh, sir ! what do you say?” he continued, throw- 
ing himself backward, and looking at Godfrey. 
“Haven’t you asked Miss Nancy to open the dance 
with you? ” 

20 Godfrey, sorely uncomfortable under this signifi- 
cant insistence about Nancy, and afraid to think 
where it would end by the time his father had set 
his usual hospitable example of cjrinking before and 
after supper, saw no course open but to turn to 

26 Nancy and say, with as little awkwardness as 
possible : 

“No ; I’ve not asked her yet, but I hope she’ll 
consent — if somebody else hasn’t been before 
me.” 

30 “No, I’ve not engaged myself,” said Nancy, 
quietly, though blushingly. (If Mr. Godfrey 
founded any hopes on her consenting to dance 
with him, he would soon be undeceived ; but there 
was no need for her to be uncivil.) 

36 “ Then I hope you’ve no objections to dancing 


SILAS MARNER. 


157 


with me/’ said Godfrey, beginning to lose the 
sense that there was anything uncomfortable in 
this arrangement. 

No, no objections,” said Nancy, in a cold tone. 

‘‘Ah, well, you’re a lucky fellow, Godfrey,” said 6 
uncle Kimble ; “ but you’re my godson, so I won't 
stand in your way. Else I’m not so very old, eh, 
my dear?” he w^ent on, skipping to his wife’s side 
again. “ You wouldn’t mind my having a second 
after you were gone — not if I cried a good deal 10 
first?” 

“ Come, come, take a cup o’ tea and stop your 
tongue, do,” said good-humored Mrs. Kimble, feel- 
ing some pride in a husband who must be regarded 
as so clever and amusing by the company gener- is 
ally. If he had only not been irritable at cards ! 

While safe, well-tested personalities were enliven- 
ing the tea in this way, the sound of the fiddle 
approaching within a distance at which it could be 
heard distinctly, made the young people look at 2c 
each other with sympathetic impatience for the end 
of the meal. 

“Why, there’s Solomon in the hall,” said the 
Squire, “ and playing my fav’rite tune, / believe — 
‘The flaxen-headed ploughboy ’ — he’s for giving 26 
us a hint as we aren’t enough in a hurry to hear 
him play. Bob,” he called out to his third long- 
legged son, who was at the other end of the room, 
“open the door, and tell Solomon to come in. He 
shall give us a tune here.” 30 

Bob obeyed, and Solomon walked in, fiddling as 
he walked, for he would on no account break off in 
the middle of a tune. 

“Here, Solomon,” said the Squire, with loud 
patronage. “Round here, my man. Ah, I knew 35 


158 


SILAS MARNER. 


it was ‘ The flaxen-headed ploughboy ’ : there’s no 
finer tune.’^ 

Solomon Macey, a small, hale old man, with an 
abundant crop of long white hair reaching nearly 
h to his shoulders, advanced to the indicated spot, 
bowing reverently while he fiddled, as much as to 
say that he respected the company though he 
respected the key-note more. As soon as he had 
repeated the tune and lowered his fiddle, he bowed 
10 again to the Squire and the Rector, and said, '‘I 
hope I see your honor and your reverence well, and 
wishing you health and long life and a happy New 
Year. And wishing the same to you, Mr. Lam- 
meter, sir ; and to the other gentlemen, and th^ 
15 madams, and the young lasses.” 

As Solomon uttered the last words, he bowed in all 
directions solicitously, lest he should be wanting in 
due respect. But thereupon he immediately began to 
prelude, and fell into the tune which he knew would 
20 be taken as a special compliment by Mr. Lammecer. 

‘'Thank ye, Solomon, thank ye,” said Mr. Lam- 
meter when the fiddle paused again. “That’s 
' Over the hills and far away,’ that is. My father 
used to say to me, whenever we heard that tune, 
25 ' Ah, lad, / came from over the hills and far away.’ 
There’s a many tunes I don’t make head or tail of ; 
but that speaks to me like the blackbird’s whistle. 
I suppose its the name : there’s a deal in the name 
of a tune.” 

30 But Solomon was already impatient to prelude 
again, and presently broke with much spirit into 
“Sir Roger de Coverley,” at which there was 

23. Over the, etc. A very popular song from the “ Beggar’s Opera** 
by John Gay. 

3a. Sir Roger, etc. A favorite English country dance named for the 
famous hero of Addison’s “ Spectator ” essays. 


SILAS MARKER. 


159 


a sound of chairs pushed back, and laughing 
voices. 

‘‘Ay, ay, Solomon, we know what that means,” said 
the Squire, rising. “ It’s time to begin the dance, 
eh? Lead the way, then, and we’ll all follow you.” 6 

So Solomon, holding his white head on one side, 
and playing vigorously, marched forward at the 
head of the gay procession into the White Parlor, 
where the mistletoe bough was hung, and multi- 
tudinous tallow candles made rather a brilliant ef- 10 
feet, gleaming from among the berried holly- 
boughs, and reflected in the old-fashioned oval 
mirrors fastened in the panels of the white 
wainscot. A quaint procession ! Old Solomon, in 
his seedy clothes and long white locks, seemed to 
be luring that decent company by the magic scream 
of his fiddle — luring discreet matrons in turban- 
shaped caps, nay, Mrs. Crackenthorp herself, the 
summit of whose perpendicular feather was on a 
level with the Squire’s shoulder — luring fair lasses 20 
complacently conscious of very short waists and 
skirts blameless of front-folds — luring burly fathers 
in large variegated waistcoats, and ruddy sons, for 
the most part shy and sheepish, in short nether 
garments and very long coat-tails. 26 

Already Mr. Macey and a few other privileged 
villagers, who were allowed to be spectators on 
these great occasions, were seated on benches 
placed for them near the door ; and great was the 
admiration and satisfaction in that quarter when the ^ 
couples had formed themselves for the dance, and 
the Squire led off with Mrs. Crackenthorp, joining 
hands with the Rector and Mrs. Osgood. That 
was as it should be — that was what everybody had 

24. Nether garments. Knee-breeches. 


i6o 


SILAS MARKER. 


been used to — and the charter of Raveloe seemed 
to be renewed by the ceiemony. 

It was not thought of as an unbecoming levity 
for the old and middle-aged people to dance a little 
6 before sitting down to cards, but rather as part of 
their social duties. For what were these if not to 
be merry at appropriate times, interchanging visits 
and poultry with due frequency, paying each other 
old-established compliments in sound traditional 
10 phrases, passing well-tried personal jokes, urging 
your guests to eat and drink too much out of hos- 
pitality, and eating and drinking too much in your 
neighbor’s house to show that you liked your cheer? 
And the parson naturally set an example in these 
15 social duties. For it would not have been possible 
for the Raveloe mind, without a peculiar revelation, 
to know that a clergyman should be a pale-faced 
memento of solemnities, instead of a reasonably 
faulty man whose exclusive authority to read prayers 
20 and preach, to christen, marry, and bury you, 
necessarily coexisted with the right to sell you the 
ground to be buried in and to take tithe in kind ; 
on which last point, of course, there was a little 
grumbling, but not to the extent of irreligion — not 
26 of deeper significance than the grumbling at the 
rain, which was by no means accompanied with a 
spirit of impious defiance, but with a desire that 
the prayer for fine weather might be read forthwith. 

There was no reason, then, why the rector’s 
30 dancing should not be received as part of the fit- 
ness of things quite as much as the Squire’s, or why, 
on the other hand, Mr. Macey’s official respect 

I. Charter. A document containing a statement of the rights and 
privileges which the crown had granted to towns, colleges, etc. 

22. Tithe in kind. To receive produce instead of money for the 
church tax. 


SILAS MARKER. 


I6l 


should restrain him from subjecting the parson’s 
performance to that criticism with which minds of 
extraordinary acuteness must necessarily contem- 
plate the doings of their fallible fellow-men. 

^^The Squire’s pretty springy, considering his 5 
weight,” said Mr. Macey, and he stamps uncom- 
mon well. But Mr. Lammeter beats ’em all for 
shapes ; you see he holds his head like a sodger, 
and he isn’t so cushiony as most o’ the oldish 
gentle folks — they run fat in general ; and he’s got 10 
a fine leg. The parson’s nimble enough, but he 
hasn’t got much of a leg : it’s a bit too thick 
down’ard, and his knees might be a bit nearer 
wi’out damage ; but he might do worse, he might do 
worse. Though he hasn’t that grand way o’ waving is 
his hand as the Squire has.” 

'^Talk o’ nimbleness, look at Mrs. Osgood,” said 
Ben Winthrop, who was holding his son Aaron 
between his knees. She trips along with her 
little steps,’ so as nobody can see how she goes — it’s 20 
like as if she had little wheels to her feet. She 
doesn’t look a day older nor last year : she’s the finest- 
made woman as is, let the next be where she will.” 

I don’t heed how the women are made,” said 
Mr. Macey, with some contempt. ^‘They wear 26 
nayther coat nor breeches : you can’t make much 
out o’ their shapes.” 

Fayder,” said Aaron, whose feet were busy 
beating out the tune, ‘‘ how does that big cock’s- 
feather stick in Mrs. Crackenthorp’s yead ? Is there so 
a little hole for it, like in my shuttle- cock? ” 

8 Sodger. Soldier. 

30. Yead. A curious change of the ** h *’ instead of dropping it alto- 
gether. 

31. Shuttlecock. A game played with rackets and small balU with 
a tuft o^ feathers in one end. 


i 62 


SILAS MARKER. 


‘‘ Hush, lad, hush ; that’s the way the ladies dress 
theirselves, that is,” said the father, adding, how- 
ever, in an undertone to Mr. Macey, It does 
make her look funny, though — partly like a short- 
6 necked bottle wi’ a long quill in it. Hey, by jingo, 
there’s the young Squire leading off now, wi’ Miss 
Nancy for partners ! There’s a lass for you ! — like 
a pink-and-white posy — there’s nobody ’ud think as 
anybody could be so pritty. I shouldn’t wonder if 
10 she’s Madam Cass some day, arter all — and nobody 
more rightfuller, for they’d make a fine match. 
You can find nothing against Master Godfrey’s 
shapes, Macey, /’ll bet a penny.” 

Mr. Macey screwed up his mouth, leaned his head 
15 further on one side, and twilled his thumbs with a 
presto movement as his eyes followed Godfrey up 
the dance. At last he summed up his opinion. 

Pretty well down’ard, but a bit too round i’ the 
shoulder-blades. And as for them coats as he gets 
20 from the Flitton tailor, they’re a poor cut to pay 
double money for.” 

Ah, Mr. Macey, you and me are two folks,” 
said Ben, slightly indignant at this carping. 

When I’ve got a pot o’ good ale, I like to swaller 
25 it, and do my inside good, i’stead o’ smelling and 
staring at it to see if I can’t find faut wi’ the brew- 
ing. I should like you to pick me out a finer- 
limbed young fellow nor Master Godfrey — one as 
’ud knock you down easier, or’s more pleasanter 
30 looksed when he’s piert and merry.” 

‘‘Tchuh!” said Mr. Macey, provoked to in- 
creased severity, he isn’t come to his right color 
yet : he’s partly like a slack-baked pie. And I 

i6. Presto. Italian word for quick, lively ; much used in music. 

30. Piert. Not here in an offensive sense, but merely “ merry." 


SILAS MARKER. 


163 


doubt he’s gota soft place in his head, else why should 
he be turned round the finger by that offal Dunsey 
as nobody’s seen o’ late, and let him kill that fine 
hunting boss as was the talk o’ the country ? And 
one while he was allays after Miss Nancy, and then s 
it all went off again, like the smell o’ hot porridge, 
as I may say. That wasn’t my way when / went 
a-coorting.” 

Ah, but mayhap Miss Nancy hung off like, and 
your lass didn’t,” said Ben. 10 

I should say she didn’t,” said Mr. Macey, sig- 
nificantly. Before I said ^ sniff,’ I took care to 
know as she’d say ‘ snaff,’ and pretty quick too. I 
wasn’t a-going to open my mouth, like a dog at a 
fly, and snap it to again, wi’ nothing to swaller.” is 

‘‘Well, I think Miss Nancy’s coming round 
again,” said Ben, “ for Master Godfrey doesn’t look 
so down-hearted to-night. And I see he’s for 
taking her away to sit down, now they’re at the end 
o’ the dance: that looks like sweet-hearting, that 20 
does.” 

The reason why Godfrey and Nancy had left the 
dance was not so tender as Ben imagined. In the 
close press of couples a slight accident had hap- 
pened to Nancy’s dress, which, while it was short 25 
enough to show her neat ankle in front, was long 
enough behind to be caught under the stately 
stamp of the Squire’s foot, so as to rend certain 
stitches at the waist, and cause much sisterly agita- 
tion in Priscilla’s mind, as well as serious concern 30 
in Nancy’s. One’s thoughts may be much occu- 
pied with love-struggles, but hardly so as to be 
insensible to a disorder in the general framework 
of things. 

Nancy had no sooner completed her duty in the 35 


164 


SILAS MARKER. 


figure they were dancing than she said to Godfrey, 
with a deep blush, that she must go and sit down 
till Priscilla could come to her ; for the sisters had 
already exchanged a short whisper and an open- 
5 eyed glance full of meaning. No reason less urgent 
than this could have prevailed on Nancy to give 
Godfrey this opportunity of sitting apart with her. 
As for Godfrey, he was feeling so happy and 
oblivious under the long charm of the country dance 
10 with Nancy, that he got rather bold on the strength 
of her confusion, and was capable of leading her 
straight away, without leave asked, into the ad- 
joining small parlor, where the card-tables were 
set. 

15 ‘‘ Oh, no, thank you,” said Nancy, coldly, as soon 

as she perceived where he was going, not in 
there. I’ll wait here till Priscilla’s ready to come 
to me. I’m sorry to bring you out of the dance 
and make myself troublesome.” 

20 ‘‘ Why, you’ll be more comfortable here by your- 

self,” said the artful Godfrey ; I’ll leave you here 
till your sister can come.” He spoke in an indif- 
ferent tone. 

That was an agreeable proposition, and just what 
26 Nancy desired ; why, then, was she a little hurt that 
Mr. Godfrey should make it? They entered, and 
she seated herself on a chair against one of the 
card tables, as the stiffest and most unapproachable 
position she could choose. 

30 ‘‘Thank you, sir,” she said * immediately. “I 
needn’t give you any more trouble. I’m sorry 
you’ve had such an unlucky partner.” 

“That’s very ill-natured of you,” said Godfrey, 
standing by her without any sign of intended de- 
aeparture, “ to be sorry you’ve danced with me.” 


SILAS MARNER. 


165 

Oh, no, sir, I don’t mean to say what’s ill- 
natured at all,” said Nancy, looking distractingly 
prim and pretty. When gentlemen have so many 
pleasures, one dance can matter but very little.” 

You know that isn’t true. You know one dance b 
with you matters more to me than all the other 
pleasures in the world.” 

It was a long, long while since Godfrey had said 
anything so direct as that, and Nancy was startled. 
But her instinctive dignity and repugnance to any 10 
show of emotion made her sit perfectly still, and 
only throw a little more decision into her voice, as 
she said : 

** No, indeed, Mr. Godfrey, that’s not known to 
me, and I have very good reasons for thinking dif - 15 
ferent. But if it’s true, I don’t wish to hear it.” 

Would you never forgive me, then, Nancy — 
never think well of me, let what would happen 
— would you never think the present made amends 
for the past? Not if I turned a good fellow, and 20 
gave up everything you didn’t like ? ” 

Godfrey was half conscious that this sudden 
opportunity of speaking to Nancy alone had driven 
him beside himself ; but blind feeling had got the 
mastery of his tongue. Nancy really felt much 25 
agitated by the possibility Godfrey’s words sug- 
gested, but this very pressure of emotion that she 
was in danger of finding too strong for her roused 
all her power of self command. 

I should be glad to see a good change in any- so 
body, Mr. Godfrey,” she answered, with the slight- 
est discernible difference of tone, but it ’ud be 
better if no change was wanted.” 

You’re very hard-hearted, Nancy, said God- 
frey, pettishly. ^^You might encourage me to be ass 


i66 


SILAS MARNER. 


better fellow. I’m very miserable — but you’ve no 
feeling.” 

I think those have the least feeling that act 
wrong to begin with,” said Nancy, sending out a 
5 flash in spite of herself. Godfrey was delighted 
with that little flash, and would have liked to go on 
and make her quarrel with him ; Nancy was so 
exasperatingly quiet and firm. But she was not 
indifferent to himj^<f/. 

10 The entrance of Priscilla, bustling forward and 
saying, ‘‘ Dear heart alive, child, let us look 
at this gown,” cut off Godfrey’s hopes of a 
quarrel. 

I suppose I must go now,” he said to Priscilla. 
15 Its no matter to me whether you go or stay,” 
said that frank lady, searching for something in 
her pocket, with a preoccupied brow. 

Do you want me to go?” said Godfrey, looking 
at Nancy, who was now standing up by Priscilla’s 
20 order. 

‘‘ As you like,” said Nancy, trying to recover all 
her former coldness, and looking down carefully at 
the hem of her gown. 

‘^Then I like to stay,” said Godfrey, with a reck- 
25 less determination to get as much of this joy as he 
could to-night, and think nothing of the morrow. 


CHAPTER XII. 

While Godfrey Cass was taking draughts of for- 
getfulness from the sweet presence of Nancy, 
willingly losing all sense of that hidden bond 
30 which at other moments galled and fretted him so 
as to mingle irritation with the very sunshine, 
Godfrey’s wife was walking with slow, uncertain 


SILAS MARNER. 1 67 

steps through the snow-covered Raveloe lanes, 
carrying her child in her arms. 

This journey on New Year’s Eve was a pre- 
meditated act of vengeance which she had kept in 
her heart ever since Godfrey, in a fit of passion, 5 
had told her he would sooner die than acknowledge 
her as his wife. There would be a great party at 
the Red House on New Year’s Eve, she knew : her 
husband would be smiling and smiled upon, hiding 
her existence in the darkest corner of his heart, lo 
But she would mar his pleasure : she would go in 
her dingy rags, with her faded face, once as hand- 
some as the best, with her little child that had its 
father’s hair and eyes, and disclose herself to the 
Squire as his eldest son’s wife. 15 

It is seldom that the miserable can help regard- 
ing their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who 
are less miserable. Molly knew that the cause of 
her dingy rags was not her husband’s neglect, but 
the demon Opium to whom she was enslaved, body 20 
and soul, except in the lingering mother’s tender- 
ness that refused to give him her hungry child. 
She knew this well ; and yet, in the moments of 
wretched unbenumbed consciousness, the sense of 
her want and degradation transformed itself con- 25 
tinually into bitterness towards Godfrey. He was 
well off ; and if she had her rights she would be 
well off, too. The belief that he repented his 
marriage, and suffered from it, only aggravated her 
vindictiveness. Just and self-reproving thoughts so 
do not come to us too thickly, even in the purest air 
and with the best lessons of heaven and earth ; how 
should those white-winged, delicate messengers 
make their way to Molly’s poisoned chamber, in- 
habited by no higher memories than those of a 33 


j68 


SILAS MARNER. 


barmaid’s paradise of pink ribbons and gentlemen’s 
jokes. 

She had set out at an early hour, but had lingered 
on the road, inclined by her indolence to believe 
6 that if she waited under a warm shed the snow 
would cease to fall. She had waited longer than 
she knew, and now that she found herself belated 
in the snow-hidden ruggedness of the long lanes, 
even the animation of a vindictive purpose could 
10 not keep her spirit from failing. It was seven 
o’clock, and by this time she was not very far from 
Raveloe, but she was not familiar enongh with those 
monotonous lanes to know how near she was to 
her journey’s end. She needed comfort, and she 
15 knew but one comforter — the familiar demon in her 
bosom ; but she hesitated a moment, after drawing 
out the black remnant, before she raised it to her 
lips. 

In that n^oment the mother’s love pleaded for 
20 painful consciousness rather than oblivion — pleaded 
to be left in aching weariness, rather than to have 
the encircling arms benumbed so that they could 
not feel the dear burden. < In another moment Molly 
had flung something away, but it was not the black 
25 remnant — it was an empty phial. And she walked 
on again under the breaking cloud, from which 
there came now and then the light of a quickly 
veiled star, for a freezing wind had sprung up since 
the snowing had ceased. But she walked always 
30 more and more drowsily, and clutched, more and 
more automatically the sleeping child at her bosom. 

Slowly the demon was working his will, and cold 
and weariness were his helpers. Soon she felt 
nothing but a supreme immediate longing that cur- 

I Barmaid. The bartenders in English public houses are generally 
women. 


SILAS MARNER. 


169 


tained off all futurity — the longing to lie down and 
sleep. She had arrived at a spot where her foot- 
steps were no longer checked by a hedgerow, and 
she had wandered vaguely, unable to distinguish any 
objects, notwithstanding the wide whiteness around 5 
her, and the growing starlight. She sank down 
against a straggling furze bush, an easy pillow 
enough ; and the bed of snow, too, was soft. She 
did not feel that the bed was cold, and did not 
heed whether the child would wake and cry for her. 10 
But her arms had not yet relaxed their instinctive 
clutch; and the little one slumbered on as gently 
as if it had been rocked in a lace-trimmed cradle. 

But the complete torpor came at last ; the fingers 
lost their tension, the arms unbent ; then the little is 
head fell away from the bosom, and the blue eyes 
opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there 
was a little peevish cry of mammy,” and an effort 
to regain the pillowing arm and bosom ; but 
mammy’s ear was deaf, and the pillow seemed to 20 
be slipping away backward. 

Suddenly, as the child rolled downward on its 
mother’s knees, all wet with snow, its eyes were 
caught by a bright, glancing light on the white 
ground, and, with the ready transition of infancy, 25 
it was immediately absorbed in watching the bright 
living thing running towards it, yet never arriving. 
That bright living thing must be caught ; and in an 
instant the child had slipped on all fours, and held 
out one little hand to catch the gleam. But the so 
gleam would not be caught in that way, and now the 
head was held up to see where the cunning gleam 
came from. It came from a very bright place ; and 
the little one, rising on its legs, toddled through 

7. Furze. A scrubby kind of shrub that grows wild in England. 


SILAS MARNER. 


I 70 


the snow, the old grimy shawl in which it was 
wrapped trailing behind it, and the queer little bon- 
net dangling at its back — toddled on to the open 
door of Silas Marner s cottage, and right up to the 
swarm hearth, where there was a bright fire of logs 
and sticks, which had thoroughly warn^ed the old 
sack (Silas’s great-coat) spread out on the bricks to 
dry. 

The little one, accustomed to be left to itself for 
10 long hours without notice from its mother, squatted 
down on the sack, and spread its tiny hands 
towards the blaze, in perfect contentment, gurgling 
and making many inarticulate communications to 
the cheerful fire, like a new-hatched gosling begin- 
15 ning to find itself comfortable. But presently the 
warmth had a lulling effect, and the little golden 
head sank down on the old sack, and the blue eyes 
were veiled by their delicate, half-transparent lids. 

But where was Silas Marner while this strange 
20 visitor had come to his hearth? He was in the 
cottage, but he did not see the child. During the 
last few weeks, since he had lost his money, he had 
contracted the habit of opening his door and look- 
ing out from time to time, as if he thought that his 
26 money might be somehow coming back to him, or 
that some trace, some news of it, might be mysteri- 
ously on the road, and be caught by the listening 
ear or the straining eye. It was chiefly at night, 
when he vvas not occupied in his loom, that he fell 
30 into this repetition of an act for which he could 
have assigned no definite purpose, and which 
can hardly be understood except by those who 
have undergone a bewildering separation from a 
supremely loved object. In the evening twilight, 
35 and later whenever the night was not dark, Silas 


SILAS MARNER. 


I71 

looked out on that narrow prospect round the 
Stone-pits, listening and gazing, not with hope, but 
with mere yearning and unrest. 

This morning he had been told by some of his 
neighbors that it was New Year’s Eve, and that he 
must sit up and hear the old year rung out and the 
new rung in, because that was good luck, and might 
bring his money back again. This was only a 
friendly Raveloe way of jesting with the half-crazy 
oddities of a miser, but it had perhaps helped to 10 
throw Silas into a more than usually excited state. 
Since the on-coming of twilight he had opened his 
door again and again, though only to shut it imme- 
diately at seeing all distance veiled by falling snow. 
But the last time he opened it the snow had is 
ceased, and the clouds were parting here and there. 
He stood and listened, and gazed for a long while 
— there was really something on the road coming 
towards him then, but he caught no sign of it ; and 
the stillness and the wide trackless snow seemed to 20 
narrow his solitude, and touched his yearning with 
the chill of despair. He went in again, and put his 
right hand on the latch of the door to close it — 
but he did not close it : he was arrested, as he had 
been already since his loss, by the invisible wand of 
catalepsy, and stood like a graven image, with wide 
but sightless eyes, holding open his door, powerless 
to resist either the good or evil that might enter 
there. 

When Marner’s sensibility returned, he con- 30 
tinned the action which had been arrested, and 
closed his door, unaware of the chasm in his 
consciousness, unaware of any intermediate change, 
except that the light had grown dim, and that 
he was chilled and faint. He thought he had 36 


172 


SILAS MARNER. 


been too long standing at the door and looking 
out. Turning towards the hearth, where the two 
logs had fallen apart, and sent forth only a red, 
uncertain glimmer, he seated himself on his fireside 
6 chair, and was stooping to push his logs together, 
when, to his blurred vision, it seemed as if there 
were gold on the floor in front of the hearth. 
Qold ! — his own gold — brought back to him as 
mysteriously as it had been taken away 1 He felt 
10 his heart begin to beat violently, and for a few 
moments he’ was unable to stretch out his hand and 
grasp the restored treasure. The heap of gold 
seemed to glow and get larger beneath his agitated 
gaze. 

15 He leaned forward at last, and stretched forth 
his hand; but instead of the hard coin with the 
familiar resisting outline, his fingers encountered 
soft, w^arm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on 
his knees and bent his head low to examine the 
20 marvel — it was a sleeping child — a round, fair thing, 
with soft yellow rings all over its head. Could this 
be his little sister come back to him in a dream — 
his little sister whom he had carried about in his 
arms for a year before she died, when he was a 
25 small boy without shoes or stockings? That was 
the first thought that darted across Silas’s blank 
wonderment. IVas it a dream? He rose to his 
feet again, pushed his logs together, and, throwing 
on some dried leaves and sticks, raised a flame, but 
30 the flame did not disperse the vision — it only lit 
up more distinctly the little round form of the 
child, and its shabby clothing. It was very much 
like his little sister. 

Silas sank into his chair powerless, under the 
35 double presence of an inexplicable surprise and a 


SILAS MARXER. 


173 


hurrying influx of memories. How and when had 
the child come in without his knowledge? He had 
never been beyond the door. But along with that 
question, and almost thrusting it away, there was a 
vision of the old home and the old streets leading ^ 
to Lantern Yard — and within that vision another, 
of the thoughts which had been present with him 
in those far-off scenes. The thoughts were strange 
to him now, like old friendships impossible to 
revive; and yet he had a dreamy feeling that this 10 
child was somehow a message come to him from 
that far-off life : it stirred fibres that had never been 
moved in Raveloe — old quiverings of tenderness 
— old impressions of awe at the presentiment of 
some Power presiding over his life ; for his imagi- is 
nation had not yet extricated itself from the sense 
of mystery in the child’s sudden presence, and had 
formed no conjectures of ordinary natural means by 
which the event could have been brought about. 

But there was a cry on the hearth : the child had 20 
awaked, and Marner stooped to lift it on his knee. 

It clung round his neck, and burst louder and 
louder into that mingling of inarticulate cries with 
‘‘ mammy ” by which little children express the 
bewilderment of waking. Silas pressed it to him, 25 
and almost unconsciously uttered sounds of hushing 
tenderness, while he bethought himself that some 
of his porridge, whicn had got cool by the dying 
fire, would do to feed the child with if it were only 
warmed up a little. 30 

He had plenty to do through the next hour. 
The porridge, sweetened with some dry brown 
sugar from an old store which he had refrained 
from using for himself, stopped the cries of the 
little one, and made her lift her blue eyes with ass 


174 


SILAS MARNER. 


wide, quiet gaze at Silas, as he put the spoon into 
her mouth. Presently she slipped from his knee 
and began to toddle about, but with a pretty stagger 
that made Silas jump up and follow her lest she 
® should fall against anything that would hurt her. 
But she only fell in a sitting posture on the ground, 
and began to pull at her boots, looking up at him 
with a crying face as if the boots hurt her. 

He took her on his knee again, but it was some 
10 time before it occured to Silas’s dull bachelor mind 
that the wet boots were the grievance, pressing on 
the warm ankles. He got them off with difficulty, 
and baby was at once happily occupied with the 
primary mystery of her own toes, inviting Silas, 
10 with much chuckling, to consider the mystery, too. 
But the wet boots had at last suggested to Silas 
that the child had been walking on the snow, and 
this roused him from his entire oblivion of any 
ordinary means by which it could have entered or 
20 been brought into his house. 

Under the prompting of this new idea, and with- 
out waiting to form conjectures, he raised the child 
in his arms, and went to the door. As soon as he 
had opened it, there was the cry of ‘Mnammy ” 
25 again, which Silas had not heard since the child’s 
first hungry waking. Bending forward, he could 
just discern the marks made by the little feet on 
the virgin snow, and he followed their track to the 
furze bushes. Mammy ! ” the little one cried 
30 again and again, stretching itself forward so as 
almost to escape from Silas’s arms, before he him- 
self was aware that there was something more than 
the bush before him — that there was a human 
body, with the head sunk low in the furze, and half 
36 covered with the shaken snow. 


SILAS MARNER. 


175 


CHAPTER XIII. 

It was after ihe early supper at the Red House, 
and the entertainment was in that stage when bash- 
fulness itself had passed into easy jollity, when 
gentlemen, con cious of unusual accomplishments, 
could at length be prevailed on to dance a hornpipe, ® 
and when the Squire preferred talking loudly, 
scattering snuff, and patting his visitors’ backs, to 
sitting longer at the whist-table — a choice exasper- 
ating to Uncle Kimble, who, being always volatile 
in sober business hours, became intense and bitter 10 
over cards and brandy, shuffled before his adver- 
sary’s deal with a glare of suspicion, and turned up 
a mean trump-card with an air of inexpressible 
disgust, as if in a world where such things could 
happen one might as well enter on a course ofi 5 
reckless profligacy. When the evening had ad- 
vanced to this pitch of freedom and enjoyment, it 
was usual for the servants, the heavy duties of 
supper being well over, to get their share of amuse- 
ment by coming to look on at the dancing; so 20 
that the back regions of the house were left in 
solitude. 

There were two doors by which the White Parlor 
was entered f om the hall, and they were both 
standing open for the sake of air; but the lower 25 
one was crowded with the servants and villagers, 
and only the upper doorway was left free. Bob 
Cass was figuring in a hornpipe, and his father, very 
proud of this lithe son, whom he repeatedly declared 
to be just like himself in his young days, in a tone 30 
that implied this to be the very highest stamp of 
juvenile merit, was the centre of a group who had 

5. Hornpipe. A dance peculiarly popular with sailors. 


SILAS MARNER. 


176 

placed themselves opposite the performer, not far 
from the upper door. Godfrey was standing a little 
way off, not to admire his brother’s dancing, but to 
keep sight of Nancy, who was seated in the group, 

5 near her father. He stood aloof, because he wished 
to avoid suggesting himself as a subject for the 
Squire’s fatherly jokes in connection with matri- 
mony, and Miss Nancy Lammeter’s beauty, which 
were likely to become more and more explicit. 
10 But he had the prospect of dancing with her again 
when the hornpipe was concluded, and in the 
meantime it was very pleasant to get long glances 
at her quite unobserved. 

But when Godfrey was lifting his eyes from one 
15 of those long glances, they encountered an object 
as startling to him at that moment as if it had been 
an apparition from the dead. It was an apparition 
from that hidden life which lies, like a dark by- 
street, behind the goodly ornamented facade that 
20 meets the sunlight and the gaze of respectable 
admirers. It was his own child carried in Silas 
Marner’s arms. That was his instantaneous impres- 
sion, unaccompanied by doubt, though he had not 
seen the child for months past : and when the hope 
25 was rising that he might possibly be mistaken, Mr. 
Crackenthorp and Mr. Lammeter had already 
advanced to Silas, in astonishment at this strange 
advent. Godfrey joined them immediately, unable 
to rest without hearing every word — trying to con- 
30 trol himself, but conscious that if any one noticed 
him, they must see that he was white-lipped and 
trembling. 

But now all eyes at that end of the room were 
bent on Silas Marner; the Squire himself had 
35 risen, arid asked angrily, ‘‘How’s this?- 'vhat’s 


SILAS MARNER. 


177 


this? — what do you do coming in here in this 
way?” 

‘‘ I’m conr.e for the doctor — 1 want the doctor,” 
Silas had said in the first moment, to Mr. Cracken- 
thorp. 5 

‘‘Why, what’s the matter, Marner?” said the 
rector. “ The doctor’s here ; but say quietly what 
you want him for.” 

“ It’s a woman,” said Silas, speaking low, and 
half-breathlessly, as Godfrey came up. “ She’s 10 
dead, I think — dead in the snow at the Stone-pits — 
not far from my door.” 

Godfrey felt a great throb ; there was one terror 
in his mind at that moment : it was, that the woman 
might not be dead. That was an evil terror — an is 
ugly inmate to have found a nestling-place in God- 
frey’s kindly disposition ; but no disposition is a 
security from evil wishes to a man whose happiness 
hangs on duplicity. 

“Hush, hush!” said Mr. Crackenthorp. “Go 2c 
out into the hall there. I’ll fetch the doctor to 
you. Found a woman in the snow — and think 
she’s dead,” he added, speaking low to the Squire. 

“ Better ray as little about it as possible : it will 
shock the ladies. Just tell them a poor woman is 25 
ill from cold and hunger. I’ll go and fetch 
Kimble.” 

By this tin e, however, the ladies had pressed 
forward, curious to know what could have brought 
the solitary linen- weaver there under such strange sa 
circumstances, and interested in the pretty child, 
who, half alarmed and half attracted by the bright- 
ness and the numerous company, now frowned and 
hid her face, now lifted up her head again and 
looked round placably, until a touch or a coaxing 35 


178 


SILAS MARNER. 


word brougnt back the frown, and made her bury 
her face with new determination. 

‘^What child is it?” said several ladies at once, 
and, among the rest, Nancy Lammeter, addressing 
5 Godfrey. 

I don’t know — some poor woman’s who has 
been found in the snow, I believe,” was the answer 
Godfrey wrung from himself with a terrible effort. 

After all, am I certain?” he hastened to add, in 
10 anticipation of his own conscience.) 

‘‘Why, you’d better leave the child here, then, 
Master Marner,” said good-natured Mrs. Kimble, 
hesitating, however, to take those dingy clothes 
into contact with her own ornamented satin bodice. 
15“ I’ll tell one o’ the girls to fetch it.” 

“ No — no — I can’t part with it, I can’t let it go,” 
said Silas, abruptly. ‘ It’s come to me — I’ve a 
right to keep it.” 

The proposition to take the child from him had 
20 come to Silas quite unexpectedly, and his speech, 
uttered under a strong, sudden impulse, was almost 
like a revelation to himself; a minute before, he 
had no distinct intention about the child. 

“ Did you ever hear the like?” said Mrs. Kimble, 
26 in mild surprise, to her neighbor. 

“ Now, ladies, I must trouble you to stand 
aside,” said Mr. Kimble, coming from the card- 
room, in some bitterness at the interruption, but 
drilled by the long habit of his profession into 
30 obedience to unpleasant calls, even when he was 
hardly sober. 

“ It’s a nasty business turning out now, eh, 
Kimble?” said the Squire. “He might ha’ gone 
for your young fellow — the ’prentice, there — what’s 
35 his name? ” 


SILAS MARNER. T 79 

Might ? ay — what’s the use of talking about 
might? ” growled uncle Kimble, hastening out with 
Marner, and followed by Mr. Crackenthorp and 
Godfrey. ‘‘Get me a pair of thick boots, Godfrey, 
will you? And stay, let somebody run to Win- 
throp’s and fetch Dolly — she’s the best woman to 
get. Ben was here himself before supper; is he 
gone? ” 

“ Yes, sir, I met him,” said Marner ; “ but I 
couldn’t stop to tell him anything, only I said I was 
going for the doctor, and he said the doctor was at 
the Squire’s. And I made haste and ran, and 
there was nobody to be seen at the back o’ the 
house, and so I went in to where the company was.” 

The child, no longer distracted by the bright 
light and the smiling women’s faces, began to cry 
and call for “mammy,” though always clinging to 
Marner, who had apparently won her thorough con- 
fidence. Godfrey had come back with the boots, 
and felt the cry as if some fibre were drawn tight 
within him. 

“ I’ll go,” he said, hastily, eager for some move- 
ment : “I’ll go and fetch the woman — Mrs. 
Winthrop.” 

“Oh, pooh — send somebody else,” said uncle 
Kimble, hurrying away with Marner. 

“ You’ll let me know if I can be of any use, 
Kimble,” said Mr. Crackenthorp. But the doctor 
was out of hearing. 

Godfrey, too, had disappeared : he was gone to 
snatch his hat and coat, having just reflection 
enough to remember that he must not look like a 
madman; but he rushed out of the house into the 
snow without heeding his thin shoes. 

In a few minutes he was on his rapid way to the 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

I 30 

35 


i8o 


5ir.AS MARNER. 


Stone-pits by the side of Dolly, who, though feeling 
that she was entirely in her place in encountering 
cold and snow on an errand of mercy, was much 
concerned at a young gentleman’s getting his feet 
5 wet under a like impulse. 

You’d a deal better go back, sir, ” said Dolly, 
with respectful compassion. ‘‘ You’ve no call to 
catch cold ; and I’d ask you if you’d be so good as 
to tell my husband to come, on your way back — 
10 he’s at the Rainbow, I doubt — if you found him 
anyway sober enough to be o’ use. Or else, there’s 
Mrs. Snell ’ud happen to send the boy up to fetch 
and carry, for there may be things wanted from the 
doctor’s.” 

1® No, I’ll stay, now I’m once out — I’ll stay out- 
side here,” said Godfrey, when they came opposite 
Marner’s cottage. You can come and tell me if 
I can do anything.” 

“ Wei], sir, you’re very good ; you’ve a tender 
20 heart,” said Dolly going to the door. 

Godfrey was too painfully preoccupied to feel a 
twinge of self-reproach at this undeserved praise. 
He walked up and down, unconscious that he was 
plunging ankle-deep in snow, unconscious of every- 
25 thing but trembling suspense about what was 
going on in the cottage, and the effect of each 
alternative on his future lot. No, not quite uncon- 
scious of everything else. Deeper down, and half- 
smothered by passionate desire and dread, there 
30 was the sense that he ought not to be waiting on 
these alternatives ; that he ought to accept the con- 
sequences of his deeds, own the miserable wife, and 
fulfil the claims of the helpless child. But he had 
not iPoral courage enough to contemplate that 
35 active renunciation of Nancy as possible for him: 


SILAS iMARXER. 


l8l 


he had only conscience and heart enough to make him 
forever uneasy under the weakness that forbade the 
renunciation. And at this moment his mind 
leaped away from all restraint toward the sudden 
prospect of deliverance from his long bondage. ' 5 

Is she dead?” said the voice that predomi- 
nated over every other within him. If she is, I 
may marry Nancy; and then I shall be a good 
fellow in future, and have no secrets, and the child 
— shall be taken care of somehow.” But across lo 
that vision came the other possibility — She may 
live, and then it*s all up with me.” 

Godfrey never knew how long it was before the 
door of the cottage opened and Mr. Kimble came 
out. He went forward to meet his uncle, pre- 15 
pared to suppress the agitation he must feel, what- 
ever news he was to hear. 

‘‘I waited for you, as Td come so far,” he said, 
speaking first. 

Pooh, it was nonsense for you to come out : 20 
why didn’t you send one of the men? There’s 
nothing to be done. She’s dead — has been dead 
for hours, I should say.” 

What sort of a woman is she?” said Godfrey, 
feeling the blood rush to his face. 25 

“ A young woman, but emaciated, with long, 
black hair. Some vagrant — quite in rags. She’s 
got a wedding-ring on, however. They must fetch 
her away to the workhouse to-morrow. Come, 
come along.” 30 

G want to look at her,” said Godfrey. I 
think I saw such a woman yesterday. I’ll over- 
take you in a minute or two.” 

Mr. Kimble went on, and Godfrey turned back 
to the cottage. He cast only one glance at the 35 


i 82 


SILAS MARNER. 


dead face on the pillow, which Dolly had smoothed 
with decent care ; but he remembered that last 
look at his unhappy hated wife so well, that at the 
end of sixteen years every line in the worn face 
5 was present to him when he told the full story of 
this night. 

He turned immediately towards the hearth, 
where Silas Marner sat lulling the child. She was 
perfectly quiet now, but not asleep — only soothed 
10 by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing 
calm which makes us older human beings with our 
inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence 
of a little child, such as we feel before seme quiet 
majesty or beauty in the earth or sky — before a 
15 steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, 
or the bending trees over a silent pathway. The 
wide-open blue eyes looked up at Godfrey’s without 
any uneasiness or sign of recognition ; the child 
could make no visible audible claim on its father ; 
2cand the father felt a strange mixture of feelings, 
a conflict of regret and joy, that the pulse of that 
little heart had no response for the half-jealous 
yearning in his own, when the blue eyes turned 
away from him slowly, and fixed themselves on the 
25 weaver’s queer face, which was bent low down to 
look at them, while the small hand began to pull 
Marner’s withered cheek with loving disfiguration. 

You’ll take the child to the parish to-morrow?” 
asked Godfrey, speaking as indifferently as he 
could. 

‘*Who says so?” said Marner, sharply. ‘‘Will 
they make me take her ? ” 

“ Why, you wouldn’t like to keep her, should you 
— an old bachelor like you?” 

“ Till anybody shows they’ve a right to take her 


35 


SILAS MARKER. 


183 

away from me,” said Marner. “ The mother’s 
dead, and I reckon it’s got no father ; it’s a lone 
thing — and I’m a lone thing. My money’s gone, 
I don’t know where — and this is come from I 
don’t know where. I know nothing — I’m partly 
mazed.” 

Poor little thing ! ” said Godfrey. Let me 
give something towards finding it clothes.” 

He had put his hand in his pocket and found 
half-a-guinea, and, thrusting it into Silas’s hand, he 
hurried out of the cottage to overtake Mr. Kimble. 

Ah, I see it’s not the same woman I saw,” he 
said, as he came up. It’s a pretty little child ; 
the old fellow seems to want to keep it ; that’s 
strange for a miser like him. But I gave him a 
trifle to help him out; the parish isn’t likely to 
quarrel with him for the right to keep the child.” 

No ; but I’ve seen the time when I might have 
quarrelled with him for it myself. It’s too late now, 
though. If the child ran into the fire, your aunt’s 
too fat to overtake it ; she could only sit and grunt 
like an alarmed sow. But what a fool you are, 
Godfrey, to come out in your dancing shoes and 
stockings in this way — and you one of the beaux of 
the evening, and at your own house ! VV hat do you 
mean by such freaks, young fellow? Has Miss 
Nancy been cruel, and do you want to spite her by 
spoiling your pumps?” 

** Oh, everything has been disagreeable to-night. 
I was tired to death of jigging and gallanting, and 
that bother about the hornpipes. And I’d got to 
dance with the other Miss Gunn,” said Godfrey, glad 
of the subterfuge his uncle had suggested to him. 

24. Beaux. The plural form; the word is French. 

30. Gallanting. Dancing and being agreeable. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

30 


184 


SILAS MARNER. 


The pievarication and white lies which a mind 
that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under 
as a great artist under the false touches that no eye 
detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere 
5 trimmings when once the actions have become a 
lie. 

Godfrey reappeared in the White Parlor with dry 
feet, and, since the truth must be told, with a sense 
of relief and gladness that was too strong for pain- 
10 ful thoughts to struggle with. For could he not 
venture now, whenever opportunity offered, to say 
the tenderest things to Nancy Lammeter — to 
promise her and himself that he would always be 
just what she would desire to see him? There was 
no danger that his dead wife would be recognized ; 
those were not days of active inquiry and wide re- 
port ; and as for the registry of their marriage, that 
was a long way off, buried in unturned pages, away 
from everyone’s interest but his own. Dunsey 
20 might betray him if he came back ; but Dunsey 
might be won to silence. 

And when events turn out so much better for a 
man than he has had reason to dread, is it not a 
proof that his conduct has been less foolish and 
25 blameworthy than it might otherwise have appeared ? 
When we are treated well, we naturally begin to 
think that we are not altogether unmeritorious, and 
that it is only just we should treat ourselves well, 
and not mar our own good fortune. Where, after 
^®all, would be the use of his confessing the past to 
Nancy Lammeter, and throwing away his happiness? 
— nay, hers? for he felt some confidence that she 
loved him. As for the child, he would see that it 
was cared for : he would never forsake it ; he would 
35 do everything but own it. Perhaps it would be 


SILAS MARNE R. 


185 

just as happy in life without being owned by its 
father, seeing that nobody could tell how things 
would turn out, and that — is there any other 
reason wanted? — well, then, that the father would 
be much happier without owning the child. 5 


CHAPTER XIV. 

There was a pauper’s burial that week in Rave- 
loe, and up Kench Yard at Batherley it was known m 
that the dark-haired woman with the fair child, who 
had lately come to lodge there, was gone away 
again. That was all the express note taken that 
Molly had disappeared from the eyes of men. But 
the unwept death which, to the general lot, seemed 
as trivial as the summer-shed leaf, was charged with 
the force of destiny to certain human lives that we 
know of, shaping their joys and sorrows even to the 
end. 

Silas Marner’s determination to keep the ^‘tramp’s 20 
child” was matter of hardly less surprise and 
iterated talk in the village than the robbery of his 
money. That softening of feeling towards him 
which dated from his misfortune, that merging of 
suspicion and dislike in a rather contemptuous pity .'5 
for him as lone and crazy, was now accompanied 
with a more active sympathy, especially amongst 
the women. Notable mothers, who knew what it 
was to keep children whole and sweet ” ; lazy 
mothers, who knew what it was to be interrupted 3 o 
in folding their arms and scratching their elbows 
by the mischievous propensities of children just 
firm on their legs, were equally interested in con- 
jecturing how a lone man would manage with a 

25. Notable. Worthy of notice and imitation. 


i86 


SILAS MARKER. 


two-year-old child on his hands, and were equally 
ready with their suggestions : the notable chiefly 
telling him what he had better do, and the lazy 
ones being emphatic in telling him what .he would 
5 never be able to do. 

Among the notable mothers, Dolly Winthrop was 
the one whose neighborly offices were the most 
acceptable to Marner, for they were rendered with- 
out any show of bustling instruction, Silas had 
10 shown her the half-guinea given to him by Godfrey, 
and had asked her what he should do about getting 
some clothes for the child. 

‘‘Eh, Master Marner,” said Dolly, “there’s no 
call to buy, no more nor a pair of shoes ; for I’ve 
15 got the little petticoats as Aaron wore five years 
ago, and it’s ill spending the money on them baby- 
clothes, for the child ’till grow like grass i’ May, 
bless it — that it will.” 

And the same day Dolly brought her bundle, and 
20 displayed to Marner, one by one, the tiny garments 
in their due order of succession, most of them 
patched and darned, but clean and neat as fresh- 
sprung herbs. This was the introduction to a great 
ceremony with soap and water, from which baby 
25 came out in new beauty, and sat on Dolly’s knee, 
handling her toes and chuckling and patting her 
palms together with an air of having made several 
discoveries about herself, which she communi- 
cated by alternate sounds of gug-gug-gug,” and 
30 “mammy.” The “mammy” was not a cry of 
need or uneasiness : Baby had been used to utter 
it without expecting either tender sound or touch 
to follow. 

“Anybody ’ud think the angils in heaven couldn’t 
35 be prettier,” said Dolly, rubbing the golden curls 


SILAS MARKER. 


187 


and kissing them. ‘‘And to think of its being 
covered wi’ them dirty rags — and the poor mother 
— froze to death ; but there’s Them as took care of 
it, and brought it to your door, Master Marner. 
The door was open, and it walked in over the snow, 5 
like as if it had been a little starved robin. Didn’t 
you say the door was open ? ” 

“Yes,” said Silas, meditatively. “Yes — the 
door was open. The money’s gone, I don’t know 
where, and this is come from I don’t know where.” 10 

He had not mentioned to any one his uncon- 
sciousness of the child’s entrance, shrinking from 
questions which might lead to the fact he himself 
suspected — namely, that he had been in one of 
his trances. 

“ Ah,” said Dolly, with soothing gravity, “ it’s 
like the night and the morning, and the sleeping 
and the waking, and the rain and the harvest — 
one goes and the other comes, and we know 
nothing how nor where. We may strive and scrat^® 
and fend, but its little we can do arter all — the 
big things come and go wi’ no striving o’ our’n — 
they do, that they do ; and I think you’re in the 
right on it to keep the little un. Master Marner, 
seeing as it’s been sent to you, though there’s folks 25 
as thinks different. You’ll happen to be a bit 
moithered with it while it's so little ; but I’ll come, 
and welcome, and see to it for you : I’ve a bit o’ 
time to spare most days, for when one gets up be- 
times i’ the morning, the clock seems to stan’ still 
tow’rt ten, afore its time to go about the victual. 


20. Scrat. A bit of provincial slang; “ scratch ” would be more 
modern. 

27. Moithered. Bothered, annoyed. 


i88 


SILAS MARNE R. 


So, as I say, I’ll come and see to the child for you, 
and welcome.” 

Thank you . . . kindly,” said Silas, hesitating 
a little. ril be glad if you’ll tell me things. 

5 But,” he added, uneasily, leaning forward to look 
at Baby with some jealousy, as she was resting her 
head backward against Dolly’s arm, and eyeing him 
contentedly from a distance — “But I want to do 
things for it myself, else it may get fond o’ some- 
10 body else, and not fond o’ me. I’ve been used to 
fending for myself in the house — I can learn, 1 
can learn.” 

“ Eh, to be sure,” said Dolly, gently. “ I’ve 
seen men as are wonderful handy wi’ children. 
15 The men are awk’ard and contrairy mostly, God 
help ’em — but when the drink’s out of ’em, they 
aren’t unsensible, though they’re bad for leeching 
and bandaging — so fiery and impatient. You see 
this goes first, next the skin,” proceeded Dolly, 
20 taking up the little shirt, and putting it on. 

“Yes,” said Marner, docilely, bringing his eyes 
very close, that they might be initiated in the 
mysteries ; whereupon Baby seized his head with 
both her small arms, and put her lips against his 
25 face with purring noises. 

“ See there,” said Dolly, with a woman’s tender 
tact, “she’s fondest o’ you. She wants to go o’ 
your lap. I’ll be bound. Go then : take her. Master 
Marner ; you can put the things on, and then you 
can say as you’ve done for her from the first of her 
coming to you.” 

Marner took her on his lap, trembling with an 
emotion mysterious to himself, at something un- 
known dawning on his life. Thought and feeling 
35 were so confused within him, that if he had tried 


SILAS MARKER. 


189 


to give tiiem utterance, he could only have said 
that the child was come instead of his gold — that 
the gold had turned into the child. He took the 
garments from Dolly, and put them on under her 
teaching ; interrupted, of course, by Baby’s gym- 
nastics. 

There, then ! why, you take to it quite easy. 
Master Marner,’* said Dolly; ‘‘but what shall you 
do when you’re forced to sit in your loom? For 
she’ll get busier and mischievouser every day — 
she will, bless her. It’s lucky you’ve got that high 
hearth i’stead of a grate, for that keeps the fire 
more out of her reach ; but if you’ve got anything 
as can be split or broke, or as is fit to cut her fin- 
gers off, she’ll be at it — and it is but right that you 
should know.” 

Silas meditated a little while in some perplexity. 
“ I’ll tie her to the leg o’ the loom,” he said at last 

— “ tie her with a good long strip o’ something.” 

“ Well, mayhap that’ll do, as it’s a little gell, for 
they’re easier persuaded to sit i’ one place nor the 
lads. I know what the lads are ; for I’ve had four 

— four I’ve had, God knows — and if you was to 
take and tie ’em up, they’d make a fighting and a 
crying as if you was ringing the pigs. But I’ll bring 
you my little chair, and some bits o’ red rag and 
things for her to play wi’ ; an’ she’ll sit and chatter 
to ’em as if they was alive. Eh, if it wasn’t a sin to 
the lads to wish ’em made different, bless ’em, I 
should ha’ been glad for one of ’em to be a little gell ; 
and to think as [ could ha’ taught her to scour, and 
mend, and the knitting, and everything. But I 
can teach ’em this little ’un. Master Marner, when 
she gets old enough.” 

25. Ringing the pigs. Puttii. rings in the pigs’ noses. 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

30 


SILAS MARKER. 


190 


‘^But she’ll be my little un,’’ said Marner, rather 
hastily. ‘‘ She’ll be nobody else’s.” 

No, to be sure ; you’ll have a right to her, if 
you’re a father to her, and bring her up according. 
But,” added Dolly, coming to a point which she 
had determined beforehand to touch upon, ‘^you 
must bring her up like christened folks’s children, 
and take her to church, and let her learn her cate- 
chise, as my little Aaron can say off — the ‘ I believe,* 
-Oand everything, and ^ hurt nobody by word or deed,’ 
— as well as if he was the clerk. That’s what you 
must do. Master Marner, if you’d do the right thing 
by the orphin child.” 

Marner’s pale face flushed suddenly under a ncAv 
anxiety. His mind was too busy trying to give 
some definite bearing to Dolly’s words for him to 
think of answering her. 

And it’s my belief,” she went on, as the poor 
little creature has never been christened, and it’s 
20 nothing but right as the parson should be spoke to ; 
and if you was noways unwilling, I’d talk to Mr. 
Macey about it this very day. For if the child ever 
went anyways wrong, and you hadn’t done your 
part by it. Master Marner — ’noculation, and every- 
25 thing to save it from harm — it *ud be a thorn i* 
your bed for ever o’ this side the grave ; and I can’t 
think as it ’ud be easy lying down for anybody when 
they’d got to another world, if they hadn’t done 
their part by the helpless children as come wi’out 
30 their own asking.” 

8. Catechise. Catechism, a series of questions and answers in the 
Prayer Book, embodying the chief articles of faith, and supposed to be 
learned by all children before their confirmation. 

p I believe. The Apostles’ Creed, which begins with the words, I 
believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth,” etc, 

24. 'Noculation. Vaccination, which had been but recently intro- 
duced in England at that time. 


SILAS MARNER. 


191 

Dolly herself was disposed to be silent for some 
time now, for she had spoken from the depths of 
her own simple belief, and was much concerned to 
know whether her words would produce the desired 
effect on Silas. He was puzzled and anxious, for 5 
Dolly's word christened " conveyed no distinct 
meaning to him. He had only heard of baptism, 
and had only seen the baptism of grown-up men 
and women. 

‘‘What is it as you mean by ‘christened’?" he 10 
said, at last, timidly. “ Won’t folks be good to her 
without it ? " 

“ Dear, dear, Master Marner," said Dolly, with 
gentle distress and compassion. “ Had you never 
no father nor mother as taught you to say your 
prayers, and as there’s good words and good things 
to keep us from harm? ’’ 

“ Yes," said Silas, in a low voice ; “ I know a deal 
about that — used to, used to. But your ways are 
different; my country was a good way off." He 20 
paused a few moments, and then added, more de- 
cidedly, “ But I want to do everything as can be 
done for the child. And whatever’s right for it i’ 
this country, and you think ’ull do it good. I’ll act 
according, if you’ll tell me.” 26 

“Well, then. Master Marner," said Dolly, inwardly 
rejoiced, “ I’ll ask Mr. Macey to speak to the parson 
about it ; and you must fix on a name for it, because 
it must have a name giv’ it when it’s christened." 

“ My mother s name was Hephzibah," said Silas, 

“ and my little sister was named after her." 

“ Eh, that’s a hard name,” said Dolly. “ I partly 
think it isn’t a christened name." 

“It’s a Bible name," said Silas, old ideas recur- 
ring. 


36 


192 


SILAS MARNER. 


Then I’ve no call to speak again’ it,” said 
Dolly, rather startled by Silas’s knowledge on this 
head; ‘‘but you see I’m no scholard, and I’m slow 
at catching the words. My husband says I’m allays 
5 like as if I was putting the haft for the handle — 
that’s what he says — for he’s very sharp, God help 
him. But it was awk’ard calling your little sister 
by such a hard name, when you’d got nothing big 
to say, like — wasn’t it. Master Marner? ” 

10 ** We called her Eppie,” said Silas. 

‘^Well, if it was noways wrong to shorten the 
name it ’ud be a deal handier. And so I’ll go now. 
Master Marner, and I’ll speak about the christening 
afore dark ; and I wish you the best o’ luck, and 
15 it’s my belief it’ll come to you, if you do what’s 
right by the orphin child ; — and there’s the ’nocu- 
lation to be seen to ; and as to washing it’s bits o’ 
things, you need to look to nobody but me, for I 
can do ’em wi’ one hand when I’ve got my suds 
20 about. Eh, the blessed angil ! You’ll let me bring 
my Aaron one o’ these days, and he’ll show her his 
little cart as his father’s made for him, and the 
black-and-white pup as he’s got a-rearing.” 

Baby was christened, the rector deciding that a 
25 double baptism was the lesser risk to incur ; and on 
this occasion Silas, making himself as clean and 
tidy as he could, appeared for the first time within 
the church, and shared in the observances held 
sacred by his neighbors. He was quite unable, by 
30 means of anything he heard or saw, to identify the 
Raveloe religion with his old faith ; if he could at 
any time in his previous life have done so, it must 
have been by the aid of a strong feeling ready to 
vibrate with sympathy, rather than by a comparison 

5. Haft Literally that part of a cutting instnimert hy which it is 
he'd. 


SILAS MARNER. 


193 


of phrases and ideas ; and now for long years that 
feeling had been dormant. He had no distinct 
idea about the baptism and the church-going, ex- 
cept that Dolly had said it was for the good of 
the child ; and in this way, as the weeks grew to ^ 
months, the child created fresh and fresh links be- 
tween his life and the lives from which he had 
hitherto shrunk continually into narrower isolation. 

Unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must 
be worshipped in close-locked solitude — which was 
hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the 
song of the birds, and started to no human tones — 
Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever- 
growing desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and 
living sounds, and living movements ; making trial 
of everything, with trust in new joy, and stirring 
the human kindness in all eyes that looked on her. 
The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated 
circle, leading to nothing beyond itself ; but Eppie 
was an object compacted of changes and hopes that 2c 
forced his thoughts onward, and carried them far 
away from their old eager pacing towards the same 
blank limit — carried them away to the new things 
that would come with the coming years, when 
Eppie would have learned to understand how her 26 
father Silas cared for her ; and made him look for 
images of that time in the ties and charities that 
bound together the families of his neighbors. The 
gold had asked that he should sit weaving longer' 
and longer, deafened and blinded more and more^^ 
to all things except the monotony of his loom and 
the repetition of his web ; but Eppie called him 
away from his weaving, and made him think all its 
pauses a holiday, reawakening his senses with her 
fresh life, even to the old winter-flies that came -^^ 


194 


SILAS MARNER. 


crawling forth in the early spring sunshine, and 
warming him into joy because she had joy. 

And when the sunshine grew strong and lasting, 
so that the buttercups were thick in the meadows, 

6 Silas might be seen in the sunny mid-day, or in the 
late afternoon when the shadows were lengthening 
under the hedgerows, strolling out with uncovered 
head to carry Eppie beyond the Stone-pits to 
where the flowers grew, till they reached some 
10 favorite bank where he could sit down, while Eppie 
toddled to pluck the flowers, and make remarks to 
the winged things that murmured happily above 
the bright petals, calling Dad-dad’s ” attention 
continualiy by bringing him the flowers. Then 
15 she would turn her ear to some sudden bird-note, 
and Silas learned to please her by making signs of 
hushed stillness, that they might listen for the note 
to come again : so that when it came, she set up 
her small back and laughed with gurgling triumph. 
20 Sitting on the banks in this way, Silas began to 
look for the once familiar herbs again ; and as the 
leaves, with their unchanged outline and markings, 
lay on his palm, there was a sense of crowding 
remembrances from which he turned away timidly, 
25 taking refuge in Eppie’s little world, that lay lightly 
on his enfeebled spirit. 

As the child’s mind was growing into knowledge, 
his mind was growing into memory : as her life un- 
folded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold, narrow 
30 prison,, was unfolding, too, and trembling gradually 
into full consciousness. 

It was an influence which must gather force with 
every new year ; the tones that stirred Silas’s heart 
grew articulate, and called for more distinct 
35 answers ; shapes and sounds grew clearer for 


SILAS MARNER. 


195 


Eppie’s eyes and ears, and there was more that 
Dad-dad ” was imperatively required to notice 
and account for. Also, by the time Eppie was 
three years old, she developed a fine capacity for 
mischief, and for devising ingenious ways of being 5 
troublesome, which found much exercise, not only 
for Silas’s patience, but for his watchfulness and 
penetration. Sorely was poor Silas puzzled on 
such occasions by the incompatible demands of 
love. Dolly Winthrop told him that punishment 10 
was good for Eppie, and that, as for rearing a child 
without making it tingle a little in soft and safe 
places now and then, it was not to be done. ^ 

‘‘To be sure, there’s another thing you might do, 
Master Marner,” added Dolly, meditatively: “you 15 
might shut her up once i’ the coal-hole. That was 
what I did wi’ Aaron ; for I was that silly wi’ the 
youngest lad, as I could never bear to smack him. 
Not as I could find i' my heart to let him stay i’ 
the coal-hole more nor a minute, but it was enough 20 
to colly him all over, so as he must be new washed 
and dressed, and it was as good as a rod to him — 
that was. But I put it upo’ your conscience. 
Master Marner, as there’s one of ’em you must 
choose — ayther smacking or the coal-hole — else 25 
she’ll get so masterful, there’ll be no holding her.” 

Silas was impressed with the melancholy truth of 
this last remark ; but his force of mind failed before 
the only two penal methods open to him, not only 
because it was painful to him to hurt Eppie, butso 
because he trembled at a moment’s contention with 
her, lest she should love him the less for it. Let 
even an affectionate Goliath get himself tied to a 

21. Colly. An obsolete word meaning to be blackened with coal . 

33. Goliath. The famous Philistine giant slain by King David. See 
I. Samuel xv>i. 23-54. 


196 


SILAS MARNER. 


small, tender thing, dreading to hurt it by pulling, 
and dread*ing still more to snap the cord, and 
which of the two, pray, will be master? It was 
clear that Eppie, with her short, toddling steps, 
5 must lead father Silas a pretty dance on any fine 
morning when circumstances favored mischief. 

For example : He had wisely chosen a broad 
strip of linen as a means of fastening her to his 
loom when he was busy : it made a broad belt 
10 round her waist, and was long enough to allow of 
her reaching the truckle-bed and sitting down on 
it, but not long enough for her to attempt any 
dangerous climbing. One bright summer’s morn- 
ing Silas had been more engrossed than usual in 
15 setting up ” a new piece of work, an occasion on 
which his scissors were in requisition. These 
scissors, owing to an especial warning of Dolly’s, 
had been kept carefully out of Eppie’s reach ; but 
the click of them had had a peculiar attraction for 
20 her ear, and watching the results of that click, she 
had derived the philsophic lesson that the same 
cause would produce the same effect. 

Silas had seated himself in his loom, and the 
noise of weaving had begun ; but he had left his 
26 scissors on a ledge which Eppie’s arm was long 
enough to reach; and iiow, like a small mouse, 
watching her opportunity, she stole quietly from 
her corner, secured the scissors, and toddled to the 
bed again, setting up her back as a mode of con- 
30 cealing the fact. She had a distinct intention as 
to the use of the scissors ; and having cut the linen 
strip in a jagged but effectual manner, in two 
moments she had run out at the open door where 

II. Truckle-bed. Also called trundle-bed. A low bed for children 
which, in the day-time, was pushed out of sight under the larger bed. 


SILAS MARNER. 


197 


the sunshine was inviting her, while poor Silas 
believed her to be a better child than usual. It 
was not until he happened to need his scissors that 
the terrible fact burst upon him : Eppie had run out 
by herself — had perhaps fallen into the Stone-pit. 6 

Silas, shaken by the worst fear that could have 
befallen him, rushed out calling ** Eppie 1 ” and 
ran eagerly about the unenclosed space, exploring 
the dry cavities into which she might have fallen, 
and then gazing with questioning dread at the 10 
smooth red surface of the water. The cold drops 
stood on his brow. How long had she been out? 
There was one hope — that she had crept through 
the stile and got into the fields, where he habitually 
took her to stroll. But the grass was high in the 
meadow, and there was no descrying her, if she 
were there, except by a close search that would be 
a trespass on Mr. Osgood’s crop. Still, that mis- 
demeanor must be committed : and poor Silas, after 
peering all round the hedgerows, traversed the 20 
grass beginning with perturbed vision to see Eppie 
behind every group of red sorrel, and to see her 
moving always farther off as he -approached. 

The meadow was searched in vain ; and he got 
over the stile into the next field, looking with dying 2^ 
hope towards a small pond which was 'now reduced 
to its summer shallowness, so as to leave a wide 
margin of good adhesive mud. Here, however, 
sat Eppie, discoursing cheerfully to her own small 
boot, which she was using as a bucket to convey 
the water into a deep hoof-mark while her little 
naked foot was planted comfortably on a cushion 
of olive-green mud. A red-headed calf was 
observing her with alarmed doubt through the 
opposite hedge. 35 


198 


SILAS MARNER. 


Here was clearly a sense of aberration in a 
christened child which demanded severe treat- 
ment ; but Silas, overcome with convulsive joy ai 
finding his treasure again, could do nothing but 
5 snatch her up, and cover her with half-sobbing 
kisses. It was not until he had carried her home, 
and had begun to think of the necessary washing, 
that he recollected the need that he should punish 
Eppie, and ** make her remember.” The idea that 
10 she might run away again and come to harm, gave 
him unusual resolution, and for the first time he 
determined to try the coal-hole — a small closet 
near the hearth. 

Naughty, naughty Eppie,” he suddenly began, 
15 holding her on his knee, and pointing to her 
muddy feet and clothes — naughty to cut with the 
scissors and run away. Eppie must go into the 
coal-hole for being naughty. Daddy must put her 
in the coal-hole;” 

20 He half-expected that this would be shock 
enough, and that Eppie would begin to cry. But 
instead of that, she began to shake herself on his 
knee, as if the pr6position opened, a pleasing 
novelty. Seeing that he must proceed to extremi- 
25 ties, he put h^r into the coal-hole, and held the 
door closed, with a trembling sense that he was 
using a strong measure. For a moment there was 
silence, but then came a little cry, ‘‘ Opy, opy ! ” 
and Silas let her out again, saying, Now Eppie 
30 ’ull never be naughty again, else she must go into 
the coal-hole — a black, naughty place.” 

The weaving must stand still a long while this 
morning, for now Eppy must be washed, and have 
clean clothes on ; but it was to be hoped that this 
35 punishment would have a lasting effect, and save 


SILAS MARNER. 


199 


time in future — though, perhaps, it would have 
been better if Eppie had cried more. 

In half an hour she was clean again, and Silas, 
having turned his back to see what he could do 
with the linen band, threw it down again, with the 5 
reflection that Eppie would be good without fasten- 
ing for the rest of the morning. He turned round 
again, and was going to place her in her little chair 
near the loom, when she peeped out at him with 
black face and hands again, and said, Eppie in 10 
de toal-hole ! ” 

This total failure of the coal-hole discipline 
shook Silas’s belief in the efficacy of punishment. 
‘‘She’d take it all for fun,” he observed to Dolly, 
“if I didn’t hurt her, and that I can’t do, Mrs. 16 
Winthrop. If she makes me a bit o’ trouble, I can 
bear it. And she’s got no tricks but what she’ll 
grow out of.” 

“ Well, that’s partly true. Master Marner,” said 
Dolly, sympathetically; “and if you can’t bring 20 
your mind to frighten her off touching things,' you 
must do what you can to keep ’em out of her way. 
That’s what I do wi’ the pups as the lads are allays 
a-rearing. They will worry and gnaw — worry and 
gnaw they will, if it was one’s Sunday cap as hung 25 
anywhere so they could drag it. They know no 
difference^ God help ’em : it’s the pushing o’ the 
teeth as sets ’em on, that’s what it is.” 

So Eppie was reared without punishment, the 
burden of her misdeeds being borne vicariously by 30 
father Silas. The stone hut was made a soft nest 
for her, lined with downy patience : and also in the 
world that lay beyond the stone hut she knew 
nothing of frowns and denials. 

Notwithstanding the difficulty of carrying herse 


200 


SILAS MARNER. 


and his yarn or linen at the same time, Silas took 
her with him in most of his journeys to the farm- 
houses, unwilling to leave her behind at Dolly 
Winthrop’s, who was always ready to take care of 
5 her ; and little curly-headed Eppie, the weaver’s 
child, became an object of interest at several out- 
lying homesteads, as well as in the village. 

Hitherto he had been treated very much as if he 
had been a useful gnome or brownie — a queer and 
10 unaccountable creature, who must necessarily be 
looked at with wondering curiosity and repulsion, 
and with whom one would be glad to make all 
greetings and bargains as brief as possible, but who 
must be dealt with in a propitiatory way and occa- 
i5sionally have a present of pork or garden stuff to 
carry home with him, seeing that without him there 
was no getting the y irn woven. But now Silas 
met with open, smiling faces and cheerful question- 
ing, as a person whose satisfaction and difficulties 
20 could be understood. Everywhere he must sit a 
little and talk about the child, and words of interest 
were always ready for him. 

Ah, Master Marner, you’ll be lucky if she takes 
the measles soon and easy ! ” or, Why, there isn’t 
25 many lone men ’ud ha’ been wishing to take up with 
a little un like that : but I reckon the weaving 
makes you handier than men as do out-door work 
— you’re partly as handy as a woman, for weaving 
comes next to spinning.” 

30 Elderly masters and mistresses, seated observ- 
antly in large kitchen arm-chairs, shook their heads 

g. Gnome. Spirits supposed to live in mines, mountains and under 
the earth. 

9. Brownie. A kind fairy supposed to help the farmer and house- 
wife in their work during the night, if he was properly propitiated. A 
bowl of milk was always left standing for him upon the kitchen table in 
early times. 


SILAS MARNE R. 


201 


over the difficulties attendant on rearing children, 
felt Eppie’s round arms and legs, and pronounced 
them remarkably firm, and told Silas that, if she 
turned out well (which, however, there was no 
telling), it would be a fine thing for him to have a s 
steady lass to do for him when he got helpless. 
Servant maidens were fond of carrying her out to 
look at the hens and chickens, or to see if any 
cherries could be shaken down in the orchard ; and 
the small boys and girls approached her slowly, lo 
with cautious movement and steady gaze, like little 
dogs face to face with one of their own kind, till 
attraction had reached the point at which the soft 
lips were put out for a kiss. 

No child was afraid of approaching Silas when i5 
Eppie was near him : there was no repulsion around 
him now, either for young or old ; for the little 
child had come to link him once more with the 
whole world. There was love between him and the 
child that blent them into one, and there was love 20 
between the child and the world — from men and 
women with parental looks and tones, to the red 
lady-birds and the round pebbles. 

Silas began now to think of Raveloe life entirely 
in relation to Eppie : she must have everything that 25 
w'as good in Raveloe ; and he listened docilely, that 
he might come to understand better what this life 
was, from which, for fifteen yeais, he had stood 
aloof as from a strange thing, wherewith he could 
have no communion : as some man who has a 30 
precious plant to which he would give a nurturing 
home in a new soil, thinks of the rain, and the sun- 
shine, and all influences, in relation to his nursling, 

23. Lady-birds. More commonly called lady-bug. The name of a 
small, spotted beetle which lives in the house. 


202 


SILAS MARNER. 


and asks industriously for all knowledge that will 
help him to satisfy the wants of the searching roots, 
or to guard leaf and bud from invading harm. 

The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed 
6 at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold : 
the coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant 
as stones brought to complete a house suddenly 
buried by an earthquake ; the sense of bereavement 
was too heavy upon him for the old thrill of satis- 
10 faction to arise again at the touch of the newly- 
earned coin. And now something had come to 
replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose 
to the earnings, drawing his hope and joy contin- 
ually onward beyond the money. 

15 In old days there were angels who came and 
took men by the hand and led them away from the 
city of destruction. We see no white-winged 
angels now. But yet men are led away from 
threatening destruction : a hand is put into theirs, 
20 which leads them forth gently towards a calm and 
bright land, so that they look no more backward ; 
and the hand may be a little child’s. 


CHAPTER XV. 

There was one person, as you will believe, who 
watched with keener though more hidden interest 
25 than any other, the prosperous growth of Eppie 
under the weaver’s care. He dared not do any- 
thing that would imply a stronger interest in a 

17. City of destruction. See Isaiah xtx 18. In that day shall 
five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of C anaan, and swear 
to the Lord of hosts; one shall be called the City of Destruction." 

22. A little child’s See Isaiah xi. 6 “ The wolf also shall dwell 

with the lamb and the leopard shall he down with the kid, and the calf 
and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead 
them." 


SILAS MARNER. 


203 


poor man’s adopted child than could be expected 
from the kindliness of the young Squire, when a 
chance meeting suggested a little present to a 
simple old fellow whom others noticed with good- 
will ; but he told himself that the time would come i 
when he might do something towards furthering 
the welfare of his daughter without incurring sus- 
picion. Was he very uneasy in the meaptime at 
his inability to give his daughter her birthright? I 
cannot say that he was. The child was being taken lo 
care of, and would very likely be happy, as people 
in humble stations often were — happier, perhaps, 
than those brought up in luxury. 

That famous ring that pricked its owner when he 
forgot duty and followed desire — I wonder if itio 
pricked very hard when he set out on the chase, or 
whether it pricked but lightly then, and only pierced 
to the quick when the chase had long been ended, 
and hope, folding her wings, looked backward and 
became regret? 20 

Godfrey Cass’s cheek and eye were brighter than 
ever now. He was so undivided in his aims, that 
he seemed like a man of firmness. No Dunsey had 
come back : people had made up their minds that 
he was gone for a soldier, or, ‘‘gone out of the 26 
country,” and no one cared to be specific in their 
inquiries on a subject delicate to a respectable 
family. Godfrey had ceased to see the shadow of 
Dunsey across his path; and the path now lay 
straight forward to the accomplishment of his best, 3 o 
longest-cherished wishes. 

Everybody said Mr. Godfrey had taken the right 
turn ; and it was pretty clear what would be the 
end of things, for there were not many days in the 
week that he was not seen riding to the Warrens. 36 


204 


SILAS MARNER. 


Godfrey himself, when he was asked jocosely if the 
day had been fixed, smiled with the pleasant con- 
sciousness of a lover who could say yes,*^ if he 
liked. He felt a reformed man, delivered from 
^ temptation ; and the vision of his future life seemed 
to him as a promised land for which he had no 
cause to fight. He saw himself with all his hap- 
piness centred on his own hearth, while Nancy 
would srhile on him as he played with the children. 

And that other child, not on the hearth — he 
would not forget it ; he would see that it was well 
provided for. That was a father’s duty. 


PART II. 


CHAPTER XVI, 

It was a bright autumn Sunday, sixteen years 
after Silas Marner had found his new treasure on 
the hearth. The bells of the old Raveloe church 
were ringing the cheerful peal that told that the 
morning service was ended ; and out of the arched i 
door-way in the tower came slowly, retarded by 
friendly greetings and questions, the richer parish- 
ioners who had chosen this bright Sunday morning 
as eligible for church-going. It was the rural 
fashion of that time for the more important mem- lo 
bers of the congregation to depart first, while their 
humbler neighbors waited and looked on, stroking 
their bent heads or dropping their curtsies to any 
large ratepayer who turned to notice them. 

Foremost among these advancing groups of well- is 
clad people, there are some whom we shall recog- 
nize, in spite of Time, who has laid his hand on 
them all. The tall, blond man of forty is not 
much changed in features from the Godfrey Cass 
of six-and-twenty : he is only fuller in flesh, and 20 
has only lost the indefinable look of youth — a loss 
which is marked even when the eye is undulled 
and the wrinkles are not yet come. Perhaps the 
pretty woman, not much younger than he, who is 
leaning on his arm, is more changed than her hus- 2 r 
band : the lovely bloom that used to be always on 

14. Ratepayer. One whose local taxes are large. 


205 


2o6 


SILAS MARNER. 


her cheek now comes but fitfully, with the fresh 
morning air or with some strong surprise ; yet to all 
who love human faces best for what they tell of 
human experience, Nancy^s beauty has a heightened 
5 interest. Often the soul is ripened into fuller good- 
ness while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere 
glances can never divine the preciousness of the 
fruit. But the years have not been so cruel to 
Nancy. The firm yet placid mouth, the clear, 
10 veracious glance of the brown eyes, speak now of 
a nature that has been tested and has kept its 
highest qualities ; and even the costume, with its 
dainty neatness and purity, has more significance 
now the coquetries of youth can have nothing to 
15 do with it. ^ 

Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass (any higher title has 
died away from Raveloe lips since the old Squire 
was gathered to his fathers and his inheritance was 
divided) have turned round to look for the tall, 
20 aged man and the plainly dressed woman who are 
a little behind — Nancy having observed that they 
must wait for ‘‘father and Priscilla” — and now 
they all turn into a narrower path leading across 
the churchyard to a small gate opposite the Red 
25 House. We will not follow them now^ for may 
there not be some others in this departing congre- 
gation whom we should like to see again — some 
of those who are not likely to be handsomely clad, 
and whom we may not recognize so easily as the 
30 master and mistress of the Red House. 

But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marne r. 
His large brown eyes seem to have gathered a 
longer vision, as is the way with eyes that have 
been short-sighted in early life, and they have a 
35 less vague, a more answering gaze ; but in eveiy- 


SILAS MARNER. 


207 


thing else one sees signs of a frame much enfeebled 
by the lapse of the sixteen years. The weaver’s 
bent shoulders and white hair give him almost the 
look of advanced age, though he is not more than 
five-and- fifty ; but there is the freshest blossom of 5 
youth close by his side — a blond, dimpled girl of 
eighteen, who has vainly tried to chastise her curly 
auburn hair into smoothness under her brown 
bonnet : the hair ripples as obstinately as a brook- 
let under the March breeze, and the little ringlets w 
burst away from the restraining comb behind and 
show themselves below the bonnet-crown. Eppie 
cannot help being rather vexed about her hair, for 
there is no other girl in Raveloe who has hair at all 
like it, and she thinks hair ought to be smooth. 
She does not like to be blameworthy even in small 
things : you see how neatly her prayer-book is 
folded in her spotted handkerchief. 

That good-looking young fellow, in a new fustian 
suit, who walks behind her, is not quite sure upon 20 
the question of hair in the abstract, when Eppie 
puts it to him, and thinks that perhaps straight hair 
is the best in general, but he doesn’t want Eppie’s 
hair to be different. She surely divines that there 
is some one behind her who is thinking about her 25 
very particularly, and mustering courage to come to 
her side as soon as they are out in the lane, else 
why should she look rather shy, and take care not 
to turn away her head from her father Silas, to 
whom she keeps murmuring little sentences as to so 
who was at church, and who was not at church, 
and how pretty the red mountain-ash is over the 
Rectory wall ! 

I wi>h we had a little garden, father, with 
double daisies in it, like Mrs. Winthrop’s,’* said 35 


208 


SILAS EARNER. 


Eppie, when they were out in the lane ; ‘*only they 
say it 'ud take a deal of digging and bringing fresh 
soil — and you couldn’t do that, could you, father ? 
Anyhow, I should ’nt like you to do it, for it ’ud be 
5 too hard work for you.” 

Yes, I could do it, child, if you want a bit o’ 
garden : these long evenings, I could work at 
taking in a little bit o’ the waste, just enough for a 
root or two o’ flowers for you ; and again, i’ the 
10 morning, I could have a turn wi’ the spade before 
I sat down to the loom. Why didn’t you tell me 
before as you wanted a bit o’ garden?” 

I can dig it for you. Master Marner,” said the 
young man in fustian, who was now by Eppie’s side, 
16 entering into the conversation without the trouble 
of formalities. It’ll be play to me after I’ve done 
my day’s work, or any odd bits o’ time when the 
work’s slack. And I’ll bring you some soil from 
Mr. Cass’s garden — he’ll let me, and willing.” 

20 Eh, Aaron, my lad, are you there?” said Silas ; 

I wasn’t aware of you ; for when Eppie’s talking 
o’ things, 1 see nothing but what she’s a-saying. 
Well, if you could help me with the digging, we 
might get her a bit o’ garden all the sooner.” 

26 ‘‘Then, if you think well and good,” said Aaron, 
“ I’ll come to the Stone-pits this afternoon, and we’ll 
settle what land’s to be taken in, and I'll get up an 
hour earlier i’ the morning, and begin on it.” 

“ But not if you don’t promise me not to work at 
30 the hard digging, father,” said Eppie. “For I 
shouldn’t ha’ said anything about it,” she added, 
half-bashfully, half-roguishly, “ only Mrs. Winthrop 
said as Aaron ’ud be so good, and” — 

“ And you might ha’ known it without her telling 
35 you,” said Aaron. “And Master Marner knows 


SILAS MARNEK. 


209 


too, I hope, as I’m able and willing to do a turn o’ 
work for him, and he won’t do me the unkindness 
to anyways take it out o’ my hands.” 

There, now, father, you won’t work in it till 
• it’s all easy,” said Eppie, ‘‘and you and me can s 
mark out the beds, and make holes and plant the 
roots. It’ll be a deal livelier at the Stone-pits 
when we’ve got some flowers, for I always think the 
flowers can see us, and know what we’re talking 
about. And I’ll have a bit of rosemary, and berga- 10 
mot, and thyme, because they’re so sweet-smelling ; 
but there’s no lavender only in the gentlefolks’ 
gardens, I think.” 

“ That’s no reason why you shouldn’t have 
some,” said Aaron, “for I can bring you slips ofic 
anything : I’m forced to cut no end of ’em when 
I’m gardening, and I throw ’em away mostly. 
There’s a big bed o’ lavender at the Red House ; 
the missis is very fond of it.” 

“Well,” said Silas, gravely, “so as you don’t 20 
make free for us, or ask for anything as is worth 
much at the Red House : for Mr. Cass’s been so 
good to us, and built us up the new end o’ the 
cottage, and given us beds and things, as I couldn’t 
abide to be imposin’ for garden-stuff or anything 25 
else.” 

“No, no, there’s no imposin’,” said Aaron; 

“ there’s never a garden in all the parish but what 
there’s endless waste in it for want o’ somebody as 
could use everything up. It’s what I think to myself 3 o 
sometimes, as there need nobody run short o’ vic- 

10. Rosemary. Laterally “dew of the sea”; a fragrant evergreen 
shrub. 

xo. Bergamot. A kind of lime or citron. 

11. Thyme. A common aromatic herb. 


2 lO 


SILAS MARNER. 


tuals if the land was made the most on, and there 
was never a morsel but what could find its way to 
a mouth. It sets one thinking o’ that — gardening 
does. But I must go back now, else mother ’ull be 
gin trouble as I aren’t there.” 

Bring her with you this afternoon, Aaron,” 
said Eppie ; ‘‘I shouldn’t like to fix about the 
garden, and her not know everything from the first 
— should you^ father ? ” 

10 Ay, bring her if you can, Aaron,” said Silas ; 

she’s sure to have a word to say as ’ll help us to 
set things on their right end.” 

Aaron turned back up the village, while Silas and 
Eppie went on up the lonely sheltered lane. 

16 O daddy ! ” she began, when they were in 
privacy, clasping and squeezing Silas’s arm, and 
skipping round to give him an energetic kiss. My 
Jittle old daddy ! I’m so glad. I don’t think I 
shall want anything els.e when we’ve got a little 
20 garden ; and I knew Aaron would dig it for us,” 
she went on with roguish triumph — ‘‘I knew that 
very well.” 

‘‘You’re a deep little puss, you are,” said Silas, 
with the mild, passive happiness of love-crowned 
2§ age in his face ; “ but you’ll make yourself fine and 
beholden to Aaron.” 

“ Oh, no, I shan’t”, said Eppie, laughing and 
frisking ; “ he likes it.” 

“ Come, come, let me carry your prayer-book, 
30 else you’ll be dropping it, jumping i’ that way.” 

Eppie was now aware that her behavior was 
under observation, but it was only the observation 
of a friendly donkey, browsing with a log fastened 
to his foot — a meek donkey, not scornfully critical 
^ of human trivialities, but thankful to share in them. 


SILAS MAKNER. 


2 1 1 


if possible, by getting his nose scratched ; and 
Eppie did not fail to gratify him with her usual 
notice, though it was attended with the incon- 
venience of his following them, painfully, up to 
the very door of their home. 

But the sound of a sharp bark inside, as Eppie 
put the key in the door, modified the donkeyls 
views, and he limped away again without bidding. 
The sharp bark was the sign of an excited welcome 
that was awaiting them from a knowing brown 
terrier, who, after dancing at their legs in a hysteri- 
cal manner, rushed with a worrying noise at a 
tortoise-shell kitten under the loom, and then 
rushed back with a sharp bark again, as much as to 
say, ** I have done my duty by this feeble creature, 
you perceive” ; while the lady-mother of the kitten 
sat sunning her white bosom in the window, and 
looked round with a sleepy air of expecting 
caresses, though she was not going to take any 
trouble for them. 

The presence of this happy animal life was not 
the only change which had come over the interior 
of the stone cottage. There was no bed now in 
the living-room, and the small space was well filled 
with decent furniture, all bright and clean enough 
to satisfy Dolly Winthrop’s eye. The oaken table 
and three-cornered oaken chair were hardly what 
was likely to be seen in so poor a cottage : they 
had come, with the beds and other things, from the 
Red House ; for Mr. Godfrey Cass, as every one 
said in the village, did very kindly by the weaver ; 
and it was nothing but right a man should be 
looked on and helped by those who could afford it, 
when he had brought up an orphan child, and been 
father and mother to her — and had lost his money 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

30 

35 


2 12 


SILAS MARNER. 


too, SO as he had nothing but what he worked' for 
week by week, and when the weaving was going 
down too — for there was less and less flax spun — ^ 
and Master Marner was none so young. 

5 Nobody w’as jealous of the weaver, for he was 
regarded as an exceptional person, whose claims on 
neighborly help were not to be matched in Raveloel 
Any superstition that remained concerning him had 
taken an entirely new color ; and Mr. Macey, now 
10 a very feeble old man of fourscore and six, never 
seen except in his chimney-corner or sitting in the 
sunshine at his door-sill, was of opinion that when 
a man had done what Silas had done by an orphan 
child, it was a sign that his money would come to 
15 light again, or leastwise that the robber would be 
made to answer for it — for, as Mr. Macey observed 
of himself, his faculties were as strong as ever. 

^ Silas sat down now and watched Eppie with a 
satisfied gaze as she spread the clean cloth, and set 
20 on it the potato-pan, warmed up slowly in a safe 
Sunday fashion, by being put into a dry pot over a 
slowly-dying fire, as the best substitute for an oven. 
For Silas would not consent to have a grate and 
oven added to his conveniences : he loved the old 
25 brick hearth as he had loved his brown pot — and 
was it not there when he found Eppie ? The gods 
of the hearth exist for us still ; and let all new faith 
be tolerant of that fetishism, lest it bruise its own 
roots. 

30 Silas ate his dinner more silently than usual, soon 
laying down his knife and fork, and watching half- 

26. Gods of the hearth. The household gods, or spirits of one’s an- 
cestors, form one of the earliest objects of worship, and the Lares and 
Penates were worshipped in Rome long after the introduction of Chris- 
tianity. 

28. Fetishism. The worship of some charm or idol. 


SILAS MARNER. 


213 


abstractedly Eppie’s play with Snap and the cat, by 
which her own dining was made rather a lengthy 
business. Yet it was a sight that might well arrest 
wandering thoughts : Eppie, with the rippling radi- 
ance of her hair and the whiteness of her rounded ^ 
chin and throat set off by the dark-blue cotton 
gown,daughing merrily as the kitten held on with 
her four claws to one shoulder, like a design for a 
jug-handle, while Snap on the right hand and Puss 
on the other put up their paws towards a morsel 
which she held out of the reach of both — Snap 
occasionally desisting in order to remonstrate with 
the cat by a cogent worrying growl on the greedi- 
ness and futility of her conduct ; till Eppie re- 
lented, caressed them both, and divided the morsel 
between them. 

But at last Eppie, glancing at the clock, checked 
the play, and said, daddy, you’re wanting to go 
into the sunshine to smoke your pipe. But I must 
clear away first, so as the house may be tidy when 20 
godmother comes. I’ll make haste — I won’t be 
long.” 

Silas had taken to smoking a pipe daily during 
the last two years, having been strongly urged to it 
by the sages of Raveloe, as a practice good for 26 
the fits” ; and this advice was sanctioned by Dr. 
Kimble, on the ground that it was as well to try 
what could do no harm — a principle which was 
made to answer for a great deal of work in that 
gentleman’s medical practice. 

Silas did not highly enjoy smoking, and often 
wondered how his neighbors could be so fond of it ; 
but a humble sort of acquiescence in what was held 
to be good, had become a strong habit of that new 
self which had been developed in him since he had 36 


SILAS MARNER. 


214 

found Eppie on his hearth : it had been the only 
clue his bewildered mind could hold by in cherish- 
ing this young life that had been sent to him out of 
the darkness into which his gold had departed. 

5 By seeking what was needful for Eppie, by sharing 
the effect that everything produced on her, he .had 
himself come to appropriate the forms of custom 
and belief which were the mould of Raveloe life ; 
and as, with reawakening sensibilities, memory also 
10 reawakened, he had begun to ponder over the 
elements of his old faith, and- blend them with his 
new impressions, till he recovered a consciousness 
of unity between his past and present. 

The sense of presiding goodness and the human 
15 trust which come with all pure peace and joy, had 
given him a dim impression that there had been 
some error, some mistake, which had thrown that 
dark shadow over the days of his best years ; and 
as it grew more and more easy to him to open his 
20 mind to Dolly Winthrop, he gradually communicated 
to her all he could describe of his early life. The 
communication was necessarily a slow and diffi- 
cult process, for Silas’s meagre power of explana- 
tion was not aided by any readiness of interpretation 
25 in Dolly, whose narrow outward experience gave 
her no key to strange customs, and made every 
novelty a source of wonder that arrested them at 
every step of the narrative. 

It was only by fragments, and at intervals which 
30 left Dolly time to revolve what she had heard till it 
acquired some familiarity for her, that Silas at last 
arrived at the climax of the sad story — the draw- 
ing of lots, and its false testimony concerning him ; 
and this had to be repeated in several interviews, 
35 under new questions on her part as to the nature of 


SILAS MARNER. 


215 


this plan for detecting the guilty and clearing the 
innocent. 

“ And yourn’s the same Bible, you’re sure o’ that, 
Master Marner — the Bible as you brought wi’ you 
from that country — it’s the same as what they’ve 5 
got at church, and what Eppie’s a-learning to read 
in?” 

** Yes,” said Silas, every bit the same ; and 
there’s drawing o’ lots in the Bible, mind you,” 
he added in a lower tone. 10 

*‘Oh, dear, dear,” said Dolly in a grieved voice, as 
if she were hearing an unfavorable report of a sick 
man’s case. She was silent for some minutes ; at 
last she said : 

There’s wise folks, happen, as know how it alD^ 
is ; the parson knows. I’ll be bound ; but it takes 
big words to tell them things, and such as poor 
folks can’t make much out on. I can never rightly 
know the meaning o’ what I hear at church, only a 
bit here and there, but I know it’s good words — 1 20 
do. But what lies upo’ your mind — it’s this, 
Master Marner : as, if Them above had done the 
right thing by you. They’d never ha’ let you be 
turned out for a wicked thief when you was innicent.” 

Ah ! ” said Silas, who had now come to under- 26 
stand Dolly’s phraseology, ** that was what fell on 
me like as if it had been red-hot iron ; because, you 
see, there was nobody as cared for me or clave to 
me above nor below. And him as I’d gone out and 
in wi’ for ten year and more, since when we was so 
lads and went halves — mine own familiar friend in 
whom I trusted, had lifted up his heel again’ me, 
and worked to ruin me.” 

31 Familiar friend. “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I 
trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his hetl against me " 

— Psalm xli, 9. 


SILAS MARKER. 


21 6 


Eh, but he was a bad un — I can’t think as 
there’s another such,” said Dolly. ‘‘But I’m o’er- 
come, Master Marner ; I’m like as if I’d waked and 
didn’t know whether it was night or morning. I 
6 feel somehow as sure as I do when I’ve laid 
something up, though I e^n’t justly put my hand 
on it, as there was a rights in what happened 
to you, if one could but make it out ; and you’d 
no call to lose heart as you did. But we’ll talk 
icon it again; for sometimes things come into my 
head when I’m leeching or poulticing, or such, 
as I could never think on when I was sitting 
still.” 

Dolly was too useful a woman not to have many 
1^ opportunities of illumination of the kind she 
alluded to, and she was not long before she 
recurred to the subject. 

“ Master Marner,” she said, one day that she 
came to bring home Eppie’s washing, “ Eve been 
20 sore puzzled for a good bitwi’ that trouble o’ yourn 
and the drawing o’ lots ; and it got twisted back- 
’ards and for’ards, as I didn’t know which end to 
lay hold on. But it come to me all clear like, that 
night when I was sitting up wi’ poor Bessy Fawkes, 
25 as is dead and left her children behind, God help 
>em — it come to me as clear as daylight; but 
whether I’ve got hold on it now, or can anyways 
bring it to my tongue’s end, that I don’t know. 
For I’ve often a deal inside me as ’ll never come 
30 out ; and for what you talk W your folks in your 
old country niver saying prayers by heart nor say- 
ing ’em out of a book, they must be wonderful 
diver ; for if I didn’t know ‘ Our Father,’ and little 
bits o’ good words as I can carry out o’ church wi’ 

II. Leeching. That is, applying leeches as a remedy. 


SILAS MARNER. 


217 


me, I might down o’ my knees every night, but 
nothing could I say.” 

But you can mostly say something as I can 
make sense on, Mrs. Winthrop,” said Silas. 

Well, then. Master Marner, it come to me 6 
summat like this : I can make nothing o’ the draw- 
ing b’ lots and the answer coming wrong ; it ’ud 
mayhap take the parson to tell that, and he could 
only 'tell us i’ big words. But what come to me as 
clear as the daylight, it was when I was troubling 10 
over poor Bessie Fawkes, and it allays comes into 
my head when I’m sorry for folks, and feel as I 
can’t do a power to help ’em, not if I was to get up 
i’ the middle o’ the night — it comes into my head 
as Them above his got a deal tenderer heart nor 15 
what I’ve got — for I can’t be anyways better nor 
Them as made me ; and if anything looks hard to 
me, it’s because there’; things I don’t know on ; 
and for the matter o’ that, there may be plenty 
o’ things I don’t know on, for it’s little as 1 20 
know — that it F. And so, while I was thinking 
o’ that, you come into mind. Master Marner, 
and it all come pouring in ; — if I felt i’ my 
inside what was the right and just thing by you, 
and them as prayed and drawed the lots, all but 25 
that wicked un, if they'd ha’ done the right thing by 
you if they could, isn’t there them as was at the 
making on us, and knows better and has a better 
will ? And that’s all as ever I can be sure on, and 
everything else is a big puzzle to me when I think 30 
on/ it. For there was the fever come and took 
off them as were full-growed, and left the helpless 
chiI4fen ; and there’s the breaking o’ limbs ; and 
theni as ’ud do right and be sober have to suffer by 
them as are contrairy — eh, there’s trouble i’ the 35 


2i8 


SILAS MARNER. 


world, and there’s things as we can never make out 
the rights on. And all as we’ve got to do is to 
trusten, Master Marher — to do the right thing as fur 
as we know, and to trusten. For if us as knows so 
6 little can see a bit o’ good and rights, we may be 
sure as there’s a good and a rights bigger nor what 
we call know — I feel it i’ my own inside as it must 
be so. And if you could ha’ gone on trustening. 
Master Marner, you wouldn’t ha’ run away from 
10 your fellow creatures and been so lone.” 

Ah, but that ’ud ha’ been hard,” said Silas in 
an undertone ; it ’ud ha’ been hard to trusten 
then.” 

‘‘ And so it would,” said Dolly, almost with com- 
15 punction ; them things are easier said nor done ; 
and I’m partly ashamed o’ talking.” 

Nay, nay,” said Silas, ’’you’re i’ the right, Mrs. 

. Winthrop — you’re i’ the right. There’s good i’ 
this world — I’ve a feeling o’ that now ; and it makes 
20 a man feel as there’s a good more nor he can see, 
i’ spite o’ the trouble and the wickedness. The 
drawing o’ the lots is dark ; but the child was sent 
to me; there’s dealings with us — there’s dealings.” 

This dialogue took place in Eppie’s earlier years, 
25 when Silas had to part with her for two hours every 
day, that she might learn to read at the dame 
school, after he had vainly tried himself to guide her 
in that first step to learning. Now that she was 
grown up, Silas had often been led, in those 
30 moments of quiet outpouring which come to people 
who live together in perfect love, to talk with her 
too, of the past, and how and why he had lived a 
lonely man until she had been sent to him. For it 
would have been impossible for him to hide from 

4. Trusten The old English form of the infinitive. 


SILAS MARNER. 


219 

Eppie that she was not his own child ; even if the 
most delicate reticence on the point could have 
been expected from Raveloe gossips in her pres- 
ence, her own questions about her mother could not 
have been parried, as she grew up, without that t 
complete shrouding of the past which would have 
made a painful barrier between their minds. 

So Eppie had long known how her mother had 
died on the snowy ground, and how she herself had 
been found on the hearth by father Silas, who had 1# 
taken her golden curls for his lost guineas brought 
back to him. The tender and peculiar love with 
which Silas had reared her in almost inseparable 
companionship with himself, aided by the seclusion 
of their dwelling, had preserved her from the lower- is 
ing influences of the village talk and habits, and 
had kept her mind in that freshness which is some- 
times falsely supposed to be an invariable attribute 
of justicity. 

^-erfect love has a breath of poetry which canae 
exalt the relations of the least-instructed human 
beings; and this breath of poetry had surrounded 
Eppie from the time when she had followed the 
bright gleam that beckoned her to Silas's hearth ; 
so that it is not surprising if, in other things besides m 
her delicate prettiness, she was not quite a common 
village maiden, but had a touch of refinement and 
fervor which came fiom no other teaching than 
that, of tenderly-nurtured unvitiated feeling. She 
was too childish and simple for her imagination to 30 
rove into questions about her unknown father; for 
a long while it did not even occur to her that she 
must have had a father ; and the first time that the 
idea of her mother having had a husband presented 
itself to her, was when Silas showed her the wed- 35 


2 20 


SILAS MARNER. 


ding ring which had been taken from the wasted 
finger, and had been carefully preserved by him in 
a little lackered box shaped like a shoe. 

He delivered this box into Eppie’s charge when 
6 she had grown up, and she often opened it to look 
at the ring; but still she thought hardly at all about 
the father of whom it was the symbol. Had she not 
a father very close to her, who loved her better 
than any real fathers in the village seemed to love 
10 their daughters? On the contrary, who her mother 
was, and how she came to die in that forlornness, 
were questions that often pressed on Eppie’s mind. 
Her knowledge of Mrs. Winthrop, who was her 
nearest friend next to Silas, made her feel that a 
15 mother must be very precious ; and she had again 
and again asked Silas to tell her how her mother 
looked, whom she was like, and how he had found 
her against the furze bush, led towards it by the 
little footsteps and the outstretched arms. The 
2C furze bush was there still ; and this afternoon, when 
Eppie came out with Silas into the sunshine, it was 
the first object that arrested her eyes and thoughts. 

Father,’’ she said in a tone of gentle gravity, 
which sometimes came like a sadder, slower 
25 cadence across her playfulness, we shall take the 
furze bush into the garden ; it’ll come into the cor- 
ner, and just against it I’ll put snowdrops and cro- 
cuses, ’cause Aaron says they won’t die out, but ’ll 
always get more and more.” 

30 Ah, child,” said Silas, always ready to talk 
when he had his pipe in his hand, apparently en- 
joying the pauses more than the puffs, it wouldn’t 
do to leave out the furze bush ; and there’s nothing 
prettier to my thinking, when it’s yallow with flow- 
35 ers. But it’s just come into my head what we're to 


SILAS MARNER. 


22 1 


do for a fence — mayhap Aaron can help us to a 
thought ; but a fence we must have, else the don- 
keys and things ’ll come and trample everything 
down. And fencing’s hard to be got at, by what I 
can make out.” 5 

‘‘ Qh, I’ll tell you, daddy,” said Eppie, clasping 
her hands suddenly, after a minute’s thought. 

There’s lots o’ loose stones about, some of ’em not 
big, and we might lay ’em atop of one another, and 
make a wall. You and me could carry the smallest, 10 
and Aaron ’ud carry the rest — I know he would.” 

^‘Eh, my precious un,” said Silas, ‘‘there isn’t 
enough stones to go all round ; and as for you car- 
rying, why, wi’ your little arms you couldn’t carry a 
stone no bigger than a turnip. You’re dillicate 
made, my dear,” he added, with a tender intona- 
tion — “ that’s what Mrs. Winthrop says.” 

“Oh, I’m stronger than you think, daddy,” said 
Eppie ; “ and if there wasn’t stones enough to go 
all round, why, they’ll go part o’ the way, and then 20 
it’ll be easier to get sticks and things for the rest. 
See here, round the big pit, what a many stones ! ” 
She skipped forward to the pit, meaning to lift 
one of the stones and exhibit her strength, but she 
started back in surprise. 25 

“ O father, just come and look here,” she ex- 
claimed — “come and see how the water’s gone 
down since yesterday. Why, yesterday the pit was 
ever so full ! ” 

“Well, to be sure,” said Silas, coming to her^® 
side. “ Why, that’s the draining they’ve begun 
on, since harvest, i’ Mr. Osgood’s fields, I reckon. 
The foreman said to me the other day, when I 
passed by ’em, ‘ Master Marner,’ he said, ‘ I 
shouldn’t wonder if we lay your bit o’ waste as dry 3^ 


222 


SILAS MARKER. 


as a bone.’ It was Mr. Godfrey Cass, he said, had 
gone into the draining : he’d been taking these 
fields o’ Mr. Osgood.” 

‘‘How odd it’ll seem to have the old pit dried 
6 up ! ” said Eppie, turning away, and stooping to 
lift rather a large stone. “ See, daddy, I can 
carry this quite well,” she said, going along with 
much energy for a few steps, but presently letting 
it fall. 

10 “Ah, you’re fine and strong, arn’t you?” said 
Silas, while Eppie shook her aching arms and 
laughed. “ Come, come, let us go and sit down on 
the bank against the stile there, and have no ‘more 
liftingc Your might hurt yourself, child. You’d 
^0 need have somebody to work for you — and my arm 
isn’t overstrong.” 

Silas uttered the last sentence slowly, as if it 
implied more than met the ear ; and Eppie, when 
they sat down on the bank, nestled close to his 
side, and, taking hold caressingly of the arm that 
was not overstrong, held it on her lap, while Silas 
puffed again dutifully at the pipe, which occupied 
his other arm. An ash in the hedgerow behind 
made a fretted screen from the sun, and threw 
^ happy, playful shadows all about them. 

“ Father,” said Eppie, very gently, after they had 
been sitting in silence a little while, “ if I was to be 
married, ought I to be married with my mother’s 
ring? ” 

^ “ Silas gave an almost imperceptible start, though 

the question fell in with the under-current of 
thought in his own mind, and then said, in a sub- 
dued tone, “ Why, Eppie, have you been a-thinking 
on it? ” 

9b ‘< Only this last week, father,” said Eppie, 


SILAS MARKER. 


223 


ingenuously, since Aaron talked to me about 
it.’’ 

And what did he say? ” said Silas, still in the 
same subdued way, as if he were anxious lest he 
should fall into the slightest tone that was not for 5 
Eppie’s good. 

** He said he should like to be married, because 
he was a-going in four-and-twenty, and had got a 
deal of gardening work, now Mr. Mott’s given up ; 
and he goes twice a-week regular to Mr. Cass’s, 10 
and once to Mr. Osgood’s and they're going to 
take him on at the Rectory.” 

And who is it as he’s wanting to marry? ” said 
Silas, with rather a sad smile. 

Why, me, to be sure*, daddy,” said Eppie, with 15 
dimpling laughter, kissing her father’s cheek ; as if 
he’d want to marry anybody else ! ” 

^'And you mean to have him, do you?” said 
Silas. 

Yes, some time,” said Eppie, I don’t know 20 
when. Everybody’s married some time, Aaron 
says. But I told him that wasn’t true ; for, I said, 
look at father — he’s never been married.” 

** No, child,” snid Silas, ‘‘your father was a lone 
man till you was sent to him.” 25 

“ But you’ll never be lone again, father,” said 
Eppie, tenderly. “That was what Aaron said — ‘I 
could never think o’ taking you away from Master 
Marner, Eppie.’ And I said, ‘ It ’ud be no use if 
you did, Aaron.’ And he wants us all to live to- 30 
gether, so as you needn’t work a bit, father, only 
what’s for your own pleasure ; and he’d be as good 
as a son to you — that’s what he said.” 

“ And should you like that, Eppie ? ” said Silas 
looking at her. 36 


224 


SILAS MARNEK. 


I shouldn’t mind it, father,” said Eppie, quite 
simply. ** And I should like things to be so as you 
needn’t work much. But if it wasn’t for that. I’d 
sooner things didn’t change. I’m very happy : I 
6 like Aaron to be fond of me, and come and see us 
often, and behave pretty to you — he always 
behave pretty to you, doesn’t he, father? ” 

Yes, child, nobody could behave better,” said 
Silas, emphatically. He’s his mother’s lad.” 

10 But I don’t want any change,” said Eppie. I 
should like to go on a long, long while, just as we 
are. Only Aaron does want a change ; and he 
made me cry a bit — only a bit — because he said I 
didn’t care for him, for if I cared for him I should 
16 want us to be married, as he did.” 

Eh, my blessed child,” said Silas, laying down 
his pipe as if it were useless to pretend to smoke 
any longer, you’re o’er young to be marrried. 
We’ll ask Mrs. Winthrop — we’ll ask Aaron’s mother 
20 what s/i^ thinks : if there’s a right thing to do, she’ll 
come at it. But there’s this to be thought on, 
Eppie : things wt7/ change, whether we like it or 
no ; things won’t go on for a long while just as they 
are and no difference. I shall get older and help- 
25 lesser, and be a burden on you, belike, if I don’t go 
away from you altogether. Not as I mean you’d 
think me a burden — I know you wouldn’t — but it 
’ud be hard upon you ; and when I look for’ard to 
that, I like to think as you’d have somebody else 
30 besides me — somebody young and strong, as’ll out- 
last your own life, and take care on you to the 
end.*’ Silas paused, and, resting his wrists on his. 
knees, lifted his hands up and down meditatively 
as he looked on the ground. 

35 Then, would you like me to be married, 


SILAS MARNER. 


225 


father?” said Eppie, with a little trembling in her 
voice. 

ril not be the man to say no, Eppie,” said 
Silas, emphatically ; but we’ll ask your god- 
mother. She’ll wish the right thing by you and 5 
her son too.” 

There they come then,” said Eppie. Let us 
go and meet ’em. Oh, the pipe ! won’t you have it 
lit again, father?” said Eppie, lifting that medi- 
cinal appliance from the ground. 10 

*^Nay, child,” said Silas, ‘‘ I’ve done enough for 
to-day. I think, mayhap, a little of it does me 
more good than so much at once.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 

While Silas and Eppie were seated on the bank 
discoursing in the fleckered shade of the ash-tree, le 
Miss Priscilla Lammeter was resisting her sister’s 
arguments, that it would be better to take tea at 
the Red House, and let her father have a long nap, 
than drive home to the Warrens so soon after 
dinner. The family party (of four only) were 20 
seated round the table in the dark wainscoted par- 
lor, with the Sunday dessert before them, of fresh 
filberts, apples and pears, duly ornamented with 
leaves by Nancy’s own hand before the bells had 
rung for church. 2.7 

A great change has come over the dark wain- 
scoted parlor since we saw it in Godfrey’s bachelor 
days, and under the wifeless reign of the old 
Squire. Now all is polish, on which no yesterday’s 
dust is ever allowed to rest, from the yard’s width 30 
of oaken boards round the carpet, to the old 

IS Fleckered. Old form of flecked. 


226 


SILAS MARNER. 


Squire* s gun and whips and walking-sticks, ranged 
on the stag’s antlers above the mantlepiece. All 
other signs of sporting and out-door occupation 
Nancy has removed to another room ; but she has 
5 brought into the Red House the habit of filial 
reverence, and preserves sacredly in a place of 
honor these relics of her husband’s departed father. 
The tankards are on the side-table still, but the 
bossed silver is undimmed by handling, and there 
10 are no dregs to send forth unpleasant suggestions : 
the only prevailing scent is of the lavender and 
rose-leaves that fill the vases of Derbyshire spar. 
All is purity and order in this once dreary room, 
for. fifteen years ago, it was entered by a new pre- 
15 siding spirit. 

Now, father,” said Nancy, is there any call 
tor you to go home to tea? Mayn’t you just as 
well stay with us ? — such a beautiful evening as it’s 
likely to be.” 

20 The old gentleman had been talking to God- 
frey about the increasing poor-rate and the ruinous 
times and had not heard the dialogue between his 
daughters. 

My dear, you must ask Priscilla,” he said, in 
25 the once firm voice, now become rather broken. 

She manages me and the farm, too.” 

And reason good as I should manage you, 
father,” said Priscilla, else you’d be giving your- 
self your death with rheumatism. And as for the 

9. Bossed. Embossed with raised figures . 

12. Derbyshire spar. A kind of crystal found in the county of 
Derbyshire. 

21. Poor-rate. A tax levied on the parish for the support of the 
poor. 

21. Ruinous times Ruinous because the prices of agricultural 
products had fallen upon the conclusion of the war with France. 


SILAS MARNER. 


227 


farm, if anything turns out wrong, as it can’t but 
do in these times, there’s nothing kills a man so 
soon as having nobody to find fault with but him- 
self. It’s a deal the best way o’ being master, to 
let somebody else do the ordering, and keep the 5 
blaming in your own hands. It ’ud save many a 
man a stroke, / believe.” 

Well, well, my dear,” said her father, with a 
quiet laugh, I didn’t say you don’t manage for 
everybody’s good.” 10 

^‘Then manage so as you may stay tea, Pris- 
cilla,” said Nancy, putting her hand on her sister’s 
arm affectionately. Come now ; and we’ll go 
round the garden while father has his nap.” 

‘‘ My dear child, he’ll have a beautiful nap in the 15 
gig, for I shall drive. And as for staying tea, I 
can’t hear of it ; for there’s this dairymaid, now 
she knows she’s to be married, turned Michaelmas, 
she’d as lief pour the new milk into the pig-trough 
as into the pans. That’s the way with ’em all : it’s 20 
as if they thought the world ’ud be new-made 
because they’re to be married. So come and let 
me put my bonnet on, and there’ll be time for us to 
walk round the garden while the horse is being put 
in.” 26 

When the sisters were treading the neatly-swept 
garden-walks, between the bright turf that con- 
trasted pleasantly with the dark cones and arches 
and wall-like hedges of yew, Priscilla said : 

I’m as glad as anything at your husband’s mak-3o 
ing that exchange o’ land with cousin Osgood, and 
beginning the dairying. It’s a thousand pities you 
didn’t do it before ; for it’ll give you something to 

18 Michaelmas. After the feast of Michael and All Angels on the 
twenty-ninth of September. 


228 


SILAS MARNER. 


fill your mind. There’s nothing like a dairy if 
folks want a bit o’ worrit to make the days pass. 
For as for rubbing furniture, when you can once 
see your face in the table there’s nothing else to 
® look for : but there’s always something fresh with 
the dairy; for even in the depths o’ winter there’s 
some pleasure in conquering the butter, and making 
it come whether or no. My dear,” added Priscilla, 
pressing her sister’s hand affectionately as they 
10 walked side by side, you’ll never be low when 
you’ve got a dairy.” 

Ah, Priscilla,” said Nancy, returning the pres- 
sure with a grateful glance of her clear eyes, but 
it won’t make up to Godfrey : a dairy’s not so much 
1** to a man. And it’s only what he cares for that 
ever makes me low. ^ Pm contented with the bless- 
ings we have, if he could be contented.” 

‘‘ It drives me past patience,” said Priscilla, 
impetuously, that way o’ the men — always want- 
20 ing and wanting, and never easy with what they’ve 
got : they can’t sit comfortable in their chairs when 
they’ve neither ache nor pain, but either they must 
stick a pipe in their mouths, to make ’em better 
than well, or else they must be swallowing some- 
25 thing strong, though they’re forced to make haste 
before the next meal comes in. But joyful be it 
spoken, our father was never that sort o’ man. And 
if it had pleased God to make you ugly, like me, so 
as the men wouldn’t ha’ run after you we might 
30 have kept to our own family, and had nothing to do 
with folks as have got uneasy blood in their veins.” 

Oh, don’t say so, Priscilla,” said Nancy, repent- 
ing that she had called forth this outburst ; no- 
body has any occasion to find fault with Godfrey, 
gilt’s natural he should be disappointed at not having 


SILAS MARNER. 


229 


any children : every man likes to have somebody to 
work for and lay by for, and he always counted so 
on making a fuss with ’em when they were little. 
There’s many another man ’ud hanker more than 
he does. He’s the best of husbands.” 

^^Oh, I know,” said Priscilla, smiling sarcastically, 

I know the way o’ wives ; they set one on to 
abuse their husbands, and then they turn round on 
one and praise ’em as if they wanted to sell ’em. 
But father ’ll be waiting for me ; we must turn 
now.” 

The large gig with the steady old gray was at 
the front door, and Mr. Lammeter was already on 
the stone steps, passing the time in recalling to 
Godfrey what very fine points Speckle had when 
his master used to ride him. 

I always would have a good horse, you know,” 
said the old gentleman, not liking that spirited 
time to be quite effaced from the memory of his 
juniors. 

Mind you bring Nancy to the Warrens before 
the week’s out, Mr. Cass,” was Priscilla’s parting 
injunction, as she took the reins, and shook them 
gently, by way of friendly incitement to Speckle. 

I shall just take a turn to the fields against the 
Stone-pits, Nancy, and look at the draining,” said 
Godfrey. 

‘^You’ll be in again by tea-time, dear?” 

‘^Oh, yes, I shall be back in an hour.” 

It was Godfrey’s custom on a Sunday afternoon 
to do a little contemplative farming in a leisurely 
walk. Nancy seldom accompanied him ; for the 
women of her generation — unless, like Priscilla, 
they took to outdoor management — were not given 
to much walking beyond their own house and gar- 


5 

I 

10 

15 

20 

25 

30 

35 


230 


SILAS MARNER. 


den, finding sufficient exercise in domestic duties. 
So, when Priscilla was not with her, she usually sat 
with Mant’s Bible before her, and after following 
the text with her eyes for a little while, she would 
5 gradually permit them to wander as her thoughts 
had already insisted on wandering. 

But Nancy’s Sunday thoughts were rarely quite 
out of keeping with the devout and reverential in- 
tention implied by the book spread open before 
10 her. She was not theologically instructed enough 
to discern very clearly the relation between the 
sacred documents of the past which she opened 
without method, and her own obscure, simple life ; 
but the spirit of rectitude, and the sense of respon- 
issibility for the effect of her conduct on others, 
which were strong elements in Nancy’s character, 
had made it a habit with her to scrutinize her past 
feelings and actions with self-questioning solicitude. 
Her mind not being courted by a great variety of 
20 subjects, she filled the vacant moments by living 
inwardly, again and again, through all her remem- 
bered experience, especially through the fifteen 
years of her married time, in which her life and its 
significance had been doubled. She recalled the 
26 small details, the words, tones, and looks, in the 
critical scenes which had opened a new epoch for 
her by giving her a deeper insight into the relations 
and trials of life, or which had called on her for 
some little effort of forbearance, or of painful 
30 adherence to an imagined or real duty — asking 
herself continually whether she had been in any 
respect blamable. 

This excessive rumination and self-questioning 

3- Mant’s Bible Bishop Mant and D’Oyly published an annotated 
edition of the Bible in 1817. 


SILAS MARNER. 


231 


is perhaps a morbid habit inevitable to a mind of 
much moral sensibility when shut out from its due 
share of outward activity and of practical claims on 
its affections — inevitable to a noble-hearted, child- 
less woman, when her lot is narrow. I can do so 5 
little — have I done it all well?” is the perpetually 
recurring thought ; and there are no voices calling 
her away from that soliloquy, no peremptory de- 
mands to divert energy from vain regret or super- 
fluous scruple. 10 

There was one main thread of painful experience 
in Nancy’s married life, and on it hung certain 
deeply-felt scenes, which were the oftenest revived 
in retrospect. The short dialogue with Priscilla in 
the garden had determined the current of retro- ir 
spect in that frequent direction this particular Sun- 
day afternoon. The first wandering of her thought 
from the text, which she still attempted dutifully to 
follow with her eyes and silent lips, was into an 
imaginary enlargement of the defence she had set 20 
up for her husband against Priscilla’s implied blame. 
The vindication of the loved object is the best balm 
affection can find for its wounds : — A man must 
have so much on his mind,” is the belief by which 
a wife often supports a cheerful face under rough 25 
answers and unfeeling words. And Nancy’s deep- 
est wounds had all come from the perception that 
the absence of children from their hearth was dwelt 
on in her husband’s mind as a privation to which 
he could not reconcile himself. 30 

Yet sweet Nancy might have been expected to 
feel still more keenly the denial of a blessing to 
which she had looked forward with all the varied 
expectations and preparations, solemn and prettily 
trivial, which fill the mind of a loving woman when 35 


232 


SILAS MARNER. 


she expects to become a mother. Was there not a 
drawer filled with the neat work of her hands, all 
unworn and untouched, just as she had arranged it 
there fourteen years ago — just, but for one little 
6 dress, which had been made the burial-dress? But 
under this immediate personal trial Nancy was so 
firmly unmurmuring, that years ago she had sud- 
denly renounced the habit of visiting this drawer, 
lest she should in this way be cherishing a longing 
10 for what was not given. 

Perhaps it was this very severity towards any 
indulgence of what she held to be sinful regret in 
herself, that made her shrink from applying her own 
standard to her husband. It is very different — it 
15 is much worse for a man to be disappointed in that 
way : a woman can always be satisfied with devoting 
herself to her husband, but a man wants something 
that will make him look forward more — and sitting 
by the fire is so much duller to him than to a 
20 woman.’ And always, when Nancy reached this 
point in her meditations — trying with predeter- 
mined sympathy, to see everything as Godfrey saw 
it — there came a renewal of self questioning. Had 
she done everything in her power to lighten God- 
25 frey’s privation? Had she really been right in the 
resistance which had cost her so much pain six 
years ago, and again four years ago — the resistance 
to her husband’s wish that they should adopt a 
child? 

30 Adoption was more remote from the ideas and 
habits of that time than of our own; still Nancy had 
her opinion on it. It was as necessary to her mind 
to have an opinion on all topics, not exclusively 
masculine, that had come under her notice, as for 
35 her to have a precisely marked place for every 


SILAS MARKER. 


233 


article of her personal property : and her opinions 
were always principles to be unwaveringly acted 
on. They were firm, not because of their basis, but 
because she held them with a tenacity inseparable 
from her mental action. 5 

On all the duties and proprieties of life, from filial 
behavior to the arrangements of the evening toilet, 
pretty Nancy Lammeter, by the time she was three- 
and-twenty, had her unalterable little code, and had 
formed every one of her habits in strict accordance 10 
with that code. She carried these decided judg- 
ments within her in the most unobtrusive way : they 
rooted themselves in her mind, and grew there as 
quietly as grass. Years ago, we know, she insisted 
on dressing like Priscilla, because it was right fori5 
sisters to dress alike,” and because she would do 
what was right if she wore a gown dyed with 
cheese-coloring.” That was a trivial but typical 
instance of the mode in which Nancy’s life was 
regulated. 20 

It was one of those rigid principles, and no petty 
egotistic feeling, which had been the ground of 
Nancy’s difficult resistance to her husband’s wish. 
To adopt a child, because children of your own had 
been denied you, was to try and choose your lot in 25 
spite of Providence ; the adopted child, she was 
convinced, would never turn out well, and would 
be a curse to those who had wilfully and rebelliously 
sought what it was clear that, for some high reason, 
they were better without. When you saw a thing so 
was not meant to be, said Nancy, it was a bounden 
duty to leave off so much as wishing for it. And 
so far, perhaps, the wisest of men could scarcely 
make more than a verbal improvement in her prin- 
ciple. But the conditions under which she held it 35 


234 


SILAS MARNER. 


apparent that a thing was not meant to be, de- 
pended on a more peculiar mode of thinking. She 
would have given up making a purchase at a par- 
ticular place if, on three successive times, rain, or 
6 some other cause of Heaven’s -sending, had formed 
an obstacle ; and she would have anticipated a 
broken limb or other heavy misfortune to any one 
who persisted in spite of such indications. 

** But why should you think the child would turn 
10 out ill?” said Godfrey, in his remonstrances. 

She has thriven as well as child can do with the 
weaver ; and /le adopted her. There isn’t such a 
pretty little girl anywhere else in the parish, or one 
fitter for the station we could give her. Where can 
be the likelihood of her being a curse to anybody? ” 
** Yes, my dear Godfrey,” said Nancy, who was 
sitting with her hands tightly clasped together, and 
with yearning, regretful affection in her eyes. 
‘‘ The child may not turn out ill with the weaver. 
20 But, then, he didn’t go to seek her, as we should 
be doing. It will be wrong ; I feel sure it will. 
Don’t you remember what that lady we met at the 
Royston Baths told us about the child her sister 
adopted ? That was the only adopting I ever heard 
25 of ; and the child was transported when it was 
twenty-three. Dear Godfrey, don’t ask me to do 
what 1 know is wrong; I should never be happy 
again. I know it’s very hard for you — it’s easier 
for me — but it’s the will of Providence.” ^ 

30 It might seem singular that Nancy — with her 
religious theory pieced together out of narrow social 
traditions, fragments of church doctrine imperfectly 
understood, and girlish reasonings on her small ex- 
perience — should have arrived by herself at a way 
^ of thinking so nearly akin to that of many devout 


SILAS MARNER. 


235 


people whose beliefs are held in the shape of a sys- 
tem quite remote from her knowledge ; singular, if 
we did not know that human beliefs, like all other 
natural growths, elude the barriers of system. 

Godfrey had from the first specified Eppie, then 5 
about twelve years old, as a child suitable for them 
to adopt. It had never occurred to him that Silas 
would rather part with his life than with Eppie. 
Surely the weaver would wish the best to the child 
he had taken so much trouble with, and would be 10 
glad that such good fortune should happen to her ; 
she would always be very grateful to him, and he 
would be well provided for to the end of his life — 
provided for as the excellent part he had done by 
the child deserved. 15 

Was it not an appropriate thing for people in a 
higher station to take a charge off the hands of a 
man in a lower ? It seemed an eminently appro- 
priate thing to Godfrey, for reasons that were known 
only to himself ; and by a common fallacy, he 20 
imagined the measure would be easy because he 
had private motives for desiring it. 

This was rather a coarse mode of estimating 
Silas’s relation to Eppie ; but we must remember 
that many of the impressions which Godfrey was 26 
likely to gather concerning the laboring people 
around him would favor the idea that deep affec- 
tions can hardly go along with callous palms and 
scant means : and he had not had the opportunity, 
even if he had had the power, of entering intimately so 
into all that was exceptional in the weaver’s experi- 
ence. It was only the want of adequate knowledge 
that could have made it possible for Godfrey delib- 
erately to entertain an unfeeling project ; his natural 
kindness had outlived that blighting time of cruel 36 


236 


SILAS MARNER. 


wishes, and Nancy’s praise of him as a husband was 
not founded entirely on a wilful illusion. 

I was right,” she said to herself, when she had 
recalled all their scenes of discussion — I feel I 
5 was right to say him nay, though it hurt me more 
than anything; but how good Godfrey has been 
about it ! Many men would have been very angry 
with me for standing out against their wishes ; and 
they might have thrown out that they’d had ill-luck 
10 in marrying me ; but Godfrey has never been the 
man to say me an unkind word. It’s only what he 
can’t hide : everything seems so blank to him, I 
know ; and the land — what a difference it ’ud make 
to him, when he goes to see after things, if he’d 
16 children growing up that he was doing it all for ! 
But I won’t murmur ; and perhaps if he’d married a 
woman who’d have had children, she’d have vexed 
him in other ways.” 

This possibility was Nancy’s chief comfort; and 
20 to give it greater strength, she labored to make it 
impossible that any other wife should have had 
more perfect tenderness. She had been fo7'ced to 
vex him by that one denial. 

Godfrey was not insensible io her loving effort, 
25 and did Nancy no injustice as to the motives of her 
obstinacy. It was impossible to have lived with 
her fifteen years and not be aware that an unselfish 
clinging to the right, and a sincerity clear as the 
flower-born dew, were her main characteristics ; 
30 indeed, Godfrey felt this so strongly, that his own 
more wavering nature, too averse to facing difficulty 
to being unvaryingly simple and truthful, was kept 
in a certain awe of this gentle wife who watched 
his looks with a yearning to obey them. It seemed 
35 to him impossible that he should ever confess to 


SILAS MARKER. 


237 


her the truth about Eppie : she would never 
recover from the repulsion the story of his earlier 
marriage would create, told to her now, after that 
long concealment. And the child, too, he thought, 
must become an object of repulsion : the very sight 
of her would be painful. The shock to Nancy’s 
mingled pride and ignorance of the world’s evil 
might even be too much for her delicate frame. 
Since he had married her with that secret on his 
heart he must keep it there to the last. Whatever 
else he did, he could not make an irreparable 
breach between himself and this long-loved wife. 

Meanwhile, why could he not make up his mind 
to the absence of children from a hearth brightened 
by such a wife ? Why did his mind fly uneasily to 
that void, as if it were the sole reason why life was 
not thoroughly joyous to him? I suppose it is the 
way with all men and women who reach middle age 
without the clear perception that life never can be 
thoroughly joyous : under the vague dulness of the 
gray hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite object, 
and finds it in the privation of an untried good. 
Dissatisfaction seated musingly on a childless hearth, 
thinks with envy of the father whose return is 
greeted by young voices — seated at the meal where 
the little heads rise one above another like nursery 
plants, it sees a black care hovering behind every 
one of them, and thinks the impulses by which 
men abandon freedom, and seek for ties, are surely 
nothing but a brief madness. 

In Godfrey’s case there were further reasons why 
his thoughts should be continually solicited by this 
one point in his lot: his conscience, never thor- 
oughly easy about Eppie, now gave his childless 
home the aspect of a retribution ; and as the time 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

30 

35 


238 


SILAS MARNER. 


passed on, under Nancy’s refusal to adopt her, any 
retrieval of his error became more and more 
difficult. 

On this Sunday afternoon it was already four 
5 years since there had been any allusion to the 
subject between them, and Nancy supposed that 
it was forever buried. 

I wonder if he’ll mind it less or more as he gets 
older,” she thought; I’m afraid more. Aged 
0 people feel the miss of children : what would father 
do without Priscilla? And if I die, Godfrey will 
be very lonely — not holding together with his 
brothers much. But I won’t be over-anxious, and 
trying to make things out beforehand : I must do 
15 my best for the present.” 

With that last thought Nancy roused herself 
from her reverie, and turned her eyes again towards 
the forsaken page. It had been forsaken longer 
than she imagined, for she was presently surprised 
20 by the appearance of the servant with the tea- 
things. It was, in fact, a little before the usual 
time for tea ; but Jane had her reasons. 

*‘Is your master come into the yard, Jane? ” 
No’m, he isn’t,” said Jane, with a slight 
25 emphasis, of which, however, her mistress took no 
notice. 

** I don’t know whether you’ve seen ’em, ’m,” 
continued Jane, after a pause, ‘^but there’s folks 
making haste all one way, afore the front window. 
36 1 doubt something’s happened. There’s niver a 
man to be seen i’ the yard, else I’d send and see. 
I’ve been up into the top attic, but there’s no 
seeing anything for trees. I hope nobody’s hurt, 
that’s all.” 


10, Miss. Want; an unusual use of the word. 


SILAS MARNER. 


239 


‘‘ Oh, no, I daresay there’s nothing much the 
matter,” said Nancy. It’s perhaps Mr. Snell’s 
bull got out again, as he did before.” 

I wish he mayn’t gore anybody then, that’s all,” 
said Jane, not altogether despising a hypothesis 6 
which covered a few imaginary calamities. 

That girl is always terrifying me,” thought 
Nancy; ‘‘ I wish Godfrey would come in.” 

She went to the front window and looked as far 
as she could see along the road, with an uneasiness 
which she felt to be childish, for there were now no 
such signs of excitement as Jane had spoken of, 
and Godfrey would not be likely to return by the 
village road, but by the fields. She continued to 
stand however, looking at the placid churchyard 15 
with the long shadows of the gravestones across the 
bright green hillocks, and at the glowing autumn 
colors of the Rectory trees beyond. Before such 
calm external beauty the presence of a vague fear 
is more distinctly felt — like a raven flapping its 20 
slow wing across the sunny air. Nancy wished 
more and more that Godfrey would come in. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

Some one opened the door at the other end of 
the room, and Nancy felt that it was her husband. 
She turned from the window with gladness in her 25 
eyes, for the wife’s chief dread was stilled.. 

‘‘ Dear, I’m so thankful you’re come,” she said, 
going towards him. “ I began to get . . .” 

She paused abruptly, for Godfrey was laying 
down his hat with trembling hands, and turned 30 
towards her with a pale face and a strange unan- 
swering glance, as if he saw her indeed, but saw 


240 


SILAS MARNER. 


her as part of a scene invisible to herself. She 
laid her hand on his arm, not daring to speak 
again ; but he left the touch unnoticed, and threw 
himself into his chair. 

5 Jane was already at the door with the hissing 
urn. 

‘^Tell her to keep away, will you?” said God- 
frey ; and when the door was closed again he 
exerted himself to speak more distinctly. 

‘‘Sit down, Nancy — there,” he said, pointing 
to a chair opposite him. “ I came back as soon as 
I could, to hinder anybody’s telling you but me. 
I’ve had a great shock — but I care most about the 
shock it’ll be to you.” 

16 “ It isn’t father and Priscilla? ” said Nancy, with 

quivering lips, clasping her hands together tightly 
on her lap.” 

“ No, it’s nobody living,” said Godfrey, unequal 
to the considerate skill with which he would have 
20 wished to make his revelation. “It’s Dunstan — 
my brother Dunstan, that we lost sight of sixteen 
years ago. We’ve found him — found his body — 
his skeleton.” 

The deep dread Godfrey’s look had created in 
25 Nancy made her feel these words a relief. She sat 
in comparative calmness to hear what else he had 
to tell. He went on : 

“The Stone-pit has gone dry suddenly — from 
the draining, I suppose ; and there he lies — has 
30 lain for sixteen years, wedged between two great 
stones. There’s his watch and seals, and there’s 
my gold-handled hunting-whip, with my name on : 
he took it away, without my knowing, the day he 

31. Seals. Before the days when everyone could write, seals, in the 
shape of engraved stones or metal, were very general, and were worn in 
a v.irie'y of ways. 


SILAS MARNER. 


241 


went hunting on Wildfire, the last time he was 
seen.” 

Godfrey paused : it was not so easy to say what 
came next. 

Do you think he drowned himself?” said & 
Nancy, almost wondering that her husband should 
be so deeply shaken by what had happened all 
those years ago to an unloved brother, of whom 
worse things had been augured. 

No, he fell in,” said Godfrey, in a low but dis- 10 
tinct voice, as if he felt some deep meaning in the 
fact. Presently he added ; “ Dunstan was the man 
that robbed Silas Marner.” 

The blood rushed to Nancy’s face and neck at 
this surprise and shame, for she had been bred up is 
to regard even a distant kinship with crime as a 
dishonor. 

O Godfrey ! ” she said, with compassion in her 
tone, for she had immediately reflected that the 
dishonor must be felt still more keenly by her hus- 20 
band. 

‘‘There was the money in the pit,” he continued 
— “ all the weaver’s money. Everything’s been 
gathered up, and they’re taking the skeleton to the 
Rainbow. But I came back to tell you : there was 25 
no hindering it ; you must know.” 

He was silent, looking on the ground for two 
long minutes. Nancy would have said' some words 
of comfort under this disgrace, but she refrained, 
from an instinctive sense that there was something 30 
behind — that Godfrey had something else to tell 
her. Presently he lifted his eyes to her face, and 
kept them fixed on her, as he said : 

“ Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or 
later. When God Almighty wills it, our secrets are 35 


242 


SILAS MARNER. 


found out. I’ve lived with a secret on my mind, 
but I’ll keep it from you no longer. I wouldn’t 
have you know it by somebody else, and not by me 
— I wouldn’t have you find it out after I’m dead. 

5 ril tell you now. It’s been ‘ I will ’ and ^ I won’t ’ 
with me all my life — I’ll make sure of myself 
now.” 

Nancy’s utmost dread had returned. The eyes 
of the husband and wife met with awe in them, as 
10 at a crisis which suspended affection. 

Nancy,” said Godfrey, slow]},‘‘ when I married 
you, I hid something from you — something I ought 
to have told you. That woman Marner found dead 
in the snow — Eppie’s mother — that wretched 
15 woman — was my wife : Eppie is my child.” 

He paused, dreading the effect of his confession. 
But Nancy sat quite still, only that her eyes dropped 
and ceased to meet his. She was pale and quiet as 
a meditative statue, clasping her hands on her lap. 
20 You’ll never think the same of me again,” said 
Godfrey, after a little while, with some tremor in 
his voice. 

She was silent. 

I oughtn’t to have left the child unowned ; I 
25 oughtn’t to have kept it from you. But I couldn’t 
bear to give you up, Nancy. I was led away into 
marrying her— I suffered for it.” 

Still Nancy was silent, looking down ; and he 
almost expected that she would presently get up 
30 and say she would go to her father’s. How could 
she have any mercy for faults that must seem so 
black to her, with her simple severe notions? 

But at last she lifted up her eyes to his again and 
spoke. There was no indignation in her voice — 
35 only deep regret. 


SILAS MARNER. 


243 


‘‘ Godfrey, if you ha 4 but told me this six years 
ago, we could have done some of our duty by the 
child. Do you think I’d have refused to take her 
in, if I’d known she was yours? ” 

At that moment Godfrey felt all the bitterness of 5 
an error that was not simply futile, but had defeated 
its own end. He had not measured this wife with 
whom he had lived so long. But she spoke again, 
with more agitation. 

And — O Godfrey — if we’d had her from the 10 
first, if you’d taken to her as you ought, she’d have 
loved me for her mother — and you’d have been' 
happier with me ; I could better have bore my little 
baby dying, and our life might have been more like 
what we used to think it ’ud be.” is 

The tears fell, and Nancy ceased to speak. 

But you wouldn’t have married me then, Nancy, 
if I’d told you,” said Godfrey, urged, in the bitter- 
ness of his self-reproach, to prove to himself that his 
conduct had not been utter folly. You may think 20 
you would now, but you wouldn’t then. With your 
pride, and your father’s, you’d have hated having 
anything to do with me after the talk there’d have 
been.” 

‘‘I can’t say what I should have done about 2s 
that, Godfrey. I should never have married any- 
body else. But I wasn’t worth doing wrong for — 
nothing is in this world. Nothing is so good as it 
seems beforehand — not even our marrying wasn’t, 
you see.” There was a faint, sad smile on Nancy’s 30 
face as she said the last words. 

I’m a worse man than you thought I was, 
Nancy,” said Godfrey, rather tremulously. '‘Can 
you forgive me ever? ” 

13. Bore. More correctly “ borne.” 


244 


SILAS MARNER. 


The wrong to me is but little, Godfrey : you’ve 
made it up to me — you’ve been good to me for fif- 
teen years. It’s another you did the wrong to ; 
and I doubt it can never be all made up for.” 

5 But we can take Eppie now,” said Godfrey. 
won’t mind the world knowing at last. I’ll be plain 
and open for the rest o’ my life.” 

It’ll be different coming to us, now she’s grown 
up,” said Nancy, shaking her head sadly. ‘‘But it’s 
10 your duty to acknowledge her and provide for her ; 
and I’ll do my part by her, and pray to God 
Almighty to make her love me.” 

“ Then we’ll go together to Silas Marner’s this 
very night, as soon as everything’s quiet at the 
15 Stone-pits.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Between eight and nine o’clock that evening, 
20 Eppie and Silas were seated alone in the cottage. 
After the great excitement the weaver had under- 
gone from the events of the afternoon, he had felt 
a longing for this quietude, and had even begged 
Mrs. Winthrop and Aaron, who had naturally 
25 lingered behind every one else, to leave him alone 
with his child. The excitement had not passed 
away : it had only reached that stage when the 
keenness of the susceptibility makes external stim- 
ulus intolerable — when there is no sense of weari- 
30 ness, but rather an intensity of inward life, under 
which sleep is an impossibility. Any one who has 
watched such moments in other men remembers 
the brightness of the eyes and the strange definite- 
ness that comes over coarse features from that 
35 transient influence. It is as if a new fineness of 


SILAS MARNER. 


245 


ear for all spiritual voices had sent wonder-working 
vibrations through the heavy mortal frame — as if 
beauty born of murmuring sound ” had passed 
into the face of the listener. 

Silas’s face showed that sort of transfiguration, as 5 
he sat in his arm-chair and looked at Eppie. She 
had drawn her own chair towards his knees, and 
leaned forward, holding both his hands, while she 
looked up at him. On the table near them, lit by 
a candle, lay the recovered gold — the old long- 10 
loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps, as Silas used 
to range it in the days when it was his only joy. 
He had been telling her how he used to count it 
every night, and how his soul was utterly desokue 
till she was sent to him. 

first, I’d a sort o’ feeling come across me 
now and then,” he was saying in a subdued tone, 
as if you might be changed into the gold again ; 
for some times, turn my head which way I would, 

I seemed to see the gold, and 1 thought I should 20 
be glad if I could feel it, and find it was come back. 
But that didn’t last long. After a bit, I should have 
thought it was a curse corne again, if it had drove 
you from me, for I’d got to feel the need o’ your 
looks and your voice and the touch o’ your little 25 
fingers. You didn’t know then, Eppie, when you 
were such a little un — you didn’t know what your 
old father Silas felt for you.” 

But I know now, father,” said Eppie. If it 
hadn’t been for you, they’d have taken me to theao 
workhouse, and there’d have been nobody to love 
me.” 


3. Beauty, etc. See Wordsworth’s poem, beginning “ Three years 
she grew.” 

31. Workhouse. The English name for poor-house. 


246 


SILAS MARNER. 


Eh, my precious child, the blessing was mine. 
If you hadn’t been sent to save me, I should ha’ 
gone to the grave In my misery. The money was 
taken away from me in time ; and you see it’s been 
5 kept — kept till it was wanted for you. It’s wonder- 
ful — our life is wonderful.” 

Silas sat in silence a few minutes, looking at the 
money. 

‘‘It takes no hold of me now,” he said ponder- 
10 ingly — “ the money doesn’t. I wonder if it ever 
could again — I doubt it might, if I lost you, Eppie. 
I might come to think I was forsaken again, and 
lose the feeling' that God was good to me.” 

At that moment there was a knocking at the 
la door; and Eppie was obliged to rise without an- 
swering Silas. Beautiful she looked, with the tender- 
ness of gathering tears in her eyes and a slight flush 
on her cheeks, as she stepped to open the door. 
The flush deepened when she saw Mr. and Mrs. 
20 Godfrey Cass. She made her little rustic curtsy, 
and held the door wide for them to enter. 

“ We’re disturbing you very late, my dear,” said 
Mrs. Cass, taking Eppie’-s hand, and looking in her 
face with an expression of anxious interest and 
25 admiration. Nancy herself was pale and tremulous. 

Eppie, after placing chairs for Mr. and Mrs, Cass, 
went to stand against Silas, opposite to them. 

“ Well, Marner, ” said Godfrey, trying to speak 
with perfect firmness, “ it’s a great comfort to me 
30 to see you with your money again, that you’ve been 
deprived of so many years. It was one of my 
family did you the wrong — the more grief to me 
— and I feel bound to make up to you for it in 
every way. Whatever I can do for you will be 
35 nothing but paying a debt, even if I looked no 


SILAS MARNER. 


247 


further than the robbery. But there are other 
things I’m beholden — shall be beholden to you 
for, Marner.” 

Godfrey checked himself. It had been agreed 
between him and his wife that the subject of his ^ 
fatherhood should be approached very carefully, 
and that, if possible, the disclosure should be 
reserved for the future, so that it might be made 
to Eppie gradually. Nancy had urged this, because 
she felt strongly the painful light in which Eppie 
must inevitably see the relation between her father 
and mother. 

Silas, always ill at ease when he was being spoken 
to by betters,” such as Mr. Cass — tall, powerful, 
florid men, seen chiefly on horseback — answered*^ 
with some constraint : 

Sir, I’ve a deal to thank you for a’ready. As 
for the robbery, I count it no loss to me. And if 
I did, you couldn’t help it : you aren’t answerable 
for it.” 20 

‘^You may look at it in that way, Marner, but I 
never can ; and I hope you’ll let me act according 
to my own feelings of what’s just. I know you’re 
easily contented : you’ve been a hard-working man 
all your life.” 26 

Yes, sir, yes,” said Marner, meditatively. I 
should ha’ been bad off without my work : it was 
what I held by when everything else was gone 
from me.” 

‘‘Ah,” said Godfrey, applying Marner’s words ^ 
simply to his bodily wants, “ it was a good trade for 
you in this country, because there’s been a great 
jjeal of linen-weaving to be done. But you’re 
getting rather past such close work, Marner : it’s 
time you laid by and had some rest. You look a.^ 


248 


SILAS MARNER. 


good deal pulled down, though you’re not an old 
man, are you ? ” 

‘^Fifty-five, as near as I can say, sir,” said Silas. 

“Oh, why, you may live thirty years longer — ;look 
6 at old Macey ! And that money on the table, alter 
all, is but little. It won’t go far either way — 
whether it’s put out to interest, or you were to live 
on it as long as it would last : it wouldn’t go far if 
you’d nobody to keep but yourself, and you’ve had 
10 two to keep for a good many years now.” 

“ Eh, sir,” said Silas, unaffected by anything 
Godfrey was saying, “I’m in no fear o’ want. We 
shall do very well — Eppie and me ’ull do well 
enough. There’s few working-folks have got so 
15 much laid by as that. I don’t know what it is to 
gentlefolks, but I look upon it as a deal — almost 
too much. And as for us, it’s little we want.” 

“ Only the garden, father,” said Eppie, blushing 
up to the ears the moment after. 

20 “You love a garden, do you, my dear?” said 
Nancy, thinking that this turn in the point of view 
might help her husband. “We should agree in 
that : I give a deal of time to the garden.” 

“Ah, there’s plenty of gardening at the Red 
25 House,” said Godfrey, surprised at the difficulty he 
found in approaching a proposition which had 
seemed so easy to him in the distance. “ You’ve 
done a good part by Eppie, Marner, for sixteen 
years. It ’ud be a great comfort to you to see her 
well provided for, wouldn’t it? She looks blooming 
and healthy, but not fit for any hardships : she 
doesi ’t look like a strapping girl come of working 
parei^.is. You’d like to see her taken care of by 
those who can leave her well off, and make a lady 
36 of her ; she’s more fit for it than for a rough life. 


SILAS MARNE R. 


249 


such as she might come to have in a few years’ 
time.” 

A slight flush came over Marner’s face, and dis- 
appeared, like a passing gleam. Eppie was simply 
wondering Mr. Cass should talk so about things 
that seemed to have nothing to do with reality, but 
Silas was hurt and uneasy. 

‘‘ I don’t take your meaning, sir,” he answered, 
not having words at command to express the 
mingled feelings with which he had heard Mr. 
Cass’s words. 

‘‘Well, my meaning is this, Marner,” said God- 
frey, determined to come to the point. “ Mrs. Cass 
and I, you know, have no children — nobody to be 
the better for our good home and everything else 
we have — more than enough for ourselves. And 
we should like to have somebody in the place of a 
daughter to us — we should like to have Eppie, and 
treat her in every way as our own child. It ’ud be 
a great comfort to you in your old age, I hope, to 
see her fortune made in that way, after you’ve been 
at the trouble of bringing her up so well. And it’s 
right you should have every reward for that. And 
Eppie, I’m sure, will always love you and be grate- 
ful to you : she’d come and see you very often, and 
we should all be on the look-out to do everything 
we could towards making you comfortable.” 

A plain man like Godfrey Cass, speaking under 
some embarrassment, necessarily blunders on words 
that are coarser than his intentions, and that are 
likely to fall gratingly on susceptible feelings. 
While he had been speaking, Eppie had quietly 
passed her arm behind Silas’s head, and let her 
hand rest against it caressingly : she felt him trem- 
bling violently. He was silent for some moments 


5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

30 

35 


250 


SILAS MARNER. 


when Mr. Cass had ended — powerless under the 
conflict of emotions, all alike painful. Eppie’s heart 
was swelling at the sense that her father was in dis- 
tress ; and she was just going to lean down and 
6 speak to him, when one struggling dread at last 
gained the mastery over every other in Silas, and he 
said, faintly : 

Eppie, my child, speak. I won^t stand in your 
way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass.” 

10 Eppie took her hand from her father’s head, and 
came forward a step. Her cheeks were flushed, 
but not with shyness this time : the sense that her 
father was in doubt and suffering banished that sort 
of self-consciousness. She dropped a low curtsy, 
15 first to Mrs. Cass and then to Mr. Cass, and said : 

Thank you, ma’am — thank you, sir. But I 
can’t leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than 
him. And I don’t want to be a lady — thank you all 
the same ” (here Eppie dropped another curtsy). 
20 I couldn’t give up the folks I’ve been used to.” 

Eppie’s lip began to tremble a little at the last 
words. She retreated to her father’s chair again, 
and held him round the neck : while Silas, with a 
subdued sob, put up his hand to grasp hers. 

25 The tears were in Nancy’s eyes, but her sym- 
pathy with Eppie was, naturally, divided with dis- 
tress on her husband’s account. She dared not 
speak, wondering what was going on in her hus- 
band’s mind. 

30 Godfrey felt an irritation inevitable to almost all 
of us when we encounter an unexpected obstacle. 
He had been full of his own penitence and resolu- 
tion to retrieve his error as far as the time was left 
to him ; he was possessed with all-important feel- 
35 ings, that were to lead to a predetermined course 


SILAS MARNE R. 


251 


of action which he had fixed on as the right, and he 
was not prepared to enter with lively appreciation 
into other people’s feelings counteracting his virtu- 
ous resolves. The agitation with which he spoke, 
again was not quite unmixed with anger. 5 

But I’ve a claim on you, Eppie — the strongest 
of all claims. It’s my duty, Marner, to own Eppie 
as my child, and provide for her. She’s my own 
child : her mother was my wife. I’ve a natural 
claim on her that must stand before every other.” 10 
Eppie had given a violent start, and turned quite 
pale. Silas, on the contrary, who had been relieved 
by Eppie’s answer, from the dread lest his mind 
should be in opposition to hers, felt the spirit of 
resistance in him set free, not without a touch of is 
parental fierceness. ^‘Then, sir,” he answered, 
with an accent of bitterness that had been silent in 
him since the memorable day when his youthful 
hope had perished — then, sir, why didn't you say 
so sixteen year ago, and claim her before I’d come 20 
to love her, i’stead o’ coming to take her from me 
now, when you might as well take the heart out o’ 
my body ? God gave her to me because you turned 
your back upon her, and He looks upon her as 
mine : you’ve no right to her ! When a man turns 25 
a blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it 
in.” 

I know that, Marner. I was wrong. I’ve 
repented of my conduct in that matter,” said God- 
frey, who could not help feeling the edge of Silas’s 30 
words. 

I’m glad to hear it, sir,” said Marner, with 
gathering excitement ; but repentance doesn’t 
alter what’s been going on for sixteen year. Your 
coming now and saying ^ I’m her father,’ doesn’t 35 


252 .SILAS MARNER. 

alter the feelings inside us. It’s me sne’s been 
calling her father ever since she could say the 
word.” 

But I think you might look at the thing more 
treasonably, Marner,” said Godfrey, unexpectedly 
awed by the weaver’s direct truth-speaking. It 
isn’t as if she was to be taken quite away from you, 
so that you’d never see her again. She’ll be very 
near you, and come to see you very often. She’ll 
10 feel just the same towards you.” 

‘‘Just the same?” said Marner, more bitterly 
than ever. “ How’ll she feel just the same for me 
as she does now, when we eat o’ the same bit, and 
drink o’ the same cup, and think o’ the same 
lathings from one day’s end to another? Just the 
same? That’s idle talk. You’d cut us i’ two.” 

Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern the 
pregnancy of Marner’ s simple words, felt rather 
angry again. It seemed to him that the weaver was 
20 very selfish (a judgment readily passed by those 
who have never tested their own power of sacrifice) 
to oppose what was undoubtedly for Eppie’s wel- 
fare ; and he felt himself called upon, for her sake, 
to assert his authority. 

25 “ I should have thought, Marner,” he said, 

severely — “ I should have thought your affection 
for Eppie would make you rejoice in what was for 
her good, even if it did call upon 3^011 to give up 
something. You ought to remember your own life’s 
uncertain, and she’s at an age now when her lot 
may soon be fixed in a way very different from 
what it would be in her father’s home : she may 
marry some low working-man, and then, whatever I 
might do for her, I couldn’t make her well-off. 
35 You’re putting yourself in the way of her welfare ; 


SILAS MARNER. 


253 


and though I’m sorry to hurt you after what you’ve 
done, and what I’ve left undone, I feel now it’s my 
duty to insist on taking care of my own daughter, 

I want to do my duty.” 

It would be difficult to say whether it were Silas s 
or Eppie that was more deeply stirred by this last 
speech of Godfrey’s. Thought had been very busy 
in Eppie as she listened to the contest between her 
old, long-loved father and this ^ new, unfamiliar 
father who had suddenly come to" fill the place of 10 
that black featureless shadow which had held the 
ring and placed it on her mother’s finger. Her 
imagination had darted backward in conjectures, and 
forward in previsions, of what this revealed father- 
hood implied; and there were words in Godfrey’s 15 
last speech which helped to make the previsions 
especially definite. Not that these thoughts, either 
of past or future, determined her resolution — that 
was determined by the feelings which vibrated to 
every word Silas had uttered ; but they raised, even 2c 
apart from these feelings, a repulsion towards the 
offered lot and the newly-revealed father. 

Silas, on the other hand, was again stricken in 
conscience, and alarmed lest Godfrey’s accusation 
should be true — lest he should be raising his own 25 
will as an obstacle to Eppie’s good. For many 
moments he was mute, struggling for the self- 
conquest necessary to the uttering of the difficult 
words. They came out tremulously. 

<H’ll say no more. Let it be as you will. Speak 3o 
to the child. I’ll hinder nothing.” 

Even Nancy, with all the acute sensibility of her 
own affections, shared her husband’s view, that 
Marner was not justifiable in his wish to retain 
Eppie, after her real father had avowed himself. 35 


254 


SILAS MARNER. 


She felt that it was a very hard trial for the poor 
weaver, but her code allowed no question that a 
father by blood must have a claim above that of 
any foster father. Besides, Nancy, used all her 
5 life to plenteous circumstances and the privileges 
of ‘‘respectability,’’ could not enter into the 
pleasures which early nurture and habit connect 
with all the little aims and efforts of the poor who 
are born poor : to her mind, Eppie, in being 
10 restored to her birthright, was entering on a too 
long withheld but unquestionable good. Hence 
she heard Silas’s last words with relief, and thought, 
as Godfrey did, that their wish was achieved. 

“Eppie, my dear,” said Godfrey, looking at his 
15 daughter, not without some embarrassment, under 
the sense that she was old enough to judge him, 
“ it’ll always be our wish that you should show your 
love and gratitude to one who’s been a father to 
you so many years, and we shall want to help you 
20 to make him comfortable in every way. But we 
hope you’ll come to love us as well ; and though I 
haven’t been what a father should ha’ been to you 
all these years, I wish to do the utmost in my 
power for you for the rest of my life, and provide 
25 for you as my only child. And you’ll have the best 
of mothers in my wife — that’ll be a blessing you 
haven’t known since you were old enough to know 
it.” 

“ My dear, you’ll be a treasure to me,” said 
30 Nancy, in her gentle voice. “We shall want for 
nothing when we have our daughter.” 

Eppie did not come forward and curtsy, as she 
had done before. She held Silas’s hand in hers, 
and grasped it firmly — it was a weaver’s hand, with 
35 a palm and finger-tips that were sensitive to such 


SILAS MAI^NER. 


255 


pressure — while she spoke with colder decision 
than before. 

Thank you, ma’am — thank you, sir, for your 
offers — they’re very great, and far above my wish. 
For I should have no delight i’ life any more if I s 
was forced to go away from my father, and knew he 
was sitting at home a-thinking of me and feeling 
lone. We’ve been used to be happy together every 
day, and I can’t think o’ no happiness without him. 
And he says he’d nobody i’ the world till I was 10 
sent to him, and he’d have nothing when I was 
gone. And he’s took care of me and loved me 
from the first, and I’ll cleave to him as long as he 
lives, and nobody shall ever come between him and 
me.” 15 

‘‘ But you must make sure, Eppie,” said Silas in a 
low voice — you must make sure as you won’t ever 
be sorry, because you’ve made you’re choice to 
stay among poor folks, and with poor clothes and 
things, when you might ha’ had everything o’ the 20 
best.” 

His sensitiveness on this point had increased as 
he listened to Eppie’s words of faithful affection. 

‘‘I can never be sorry, father,” said Enpie. ‘‘ I 
shouldn’t know what to think on or to wish for with 25 
fine things about me, as I haven’t been used to. 
And it ’ud be poor work for me to put on things 
and ride in a gig, and sit in a place at church, as 
’ud make them as I’m fond of think me unfitting 
company for ’em. What could / care for them?” so 
Nancy looked at Godfrey with a pained question- 

13. Cleave to him. Compare Ruth’s words to Naomi: “Intreat me 
not to leave thee, or ta return fr -m following after thee; for whither thou 
goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will 1 'dge; thy people shall be 
my people, and thy God my God; where thou dtest, wid I die, and there 
will I be buried; the Cord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death 
part thee and me.” 


256 


SILAS MARNLR. 


ing glance. But his eyes were fixed on the floor, 
where he was moving the end of his stick, as 
if he were pondering on something absently. She 
thought there was a word which might perhaps 
6 come better from her lips than from his. 

‘‘What you say is natural, my dear child — it’s 
natural you should cling to those who’ve brought 
you up,” she said mildly ; “ but there’s a duty you 
owe to your lawful father. There’s perhaps some- 
10 thing to be given up on more sides than one. 
When your father opens his home to you, I think 
it’s right you shouldn’t turn your back on it.” 

“ I can’t feel as I’ve got any father but one.” 
said Eppie, impetuously, while the tears gathered. 
15 “I’ve always thought of a little home where he’d 
sit i’ the corner, and I should fend and do every- 
thing for him : I can’t think o’ no other home. I 
wasn’t brought up to be a lady, and I can’t turn 
my mind to it. I like the working-folks, and their 
20 victuals, and their ways. And,” she ended pas- 
sionately, while the tears fell, “ I’m promised to 
marry a working-man, as’ll live with father, and 
help me to take care of him.” 

Godfrey looked up at Nancy with a flushed face 
25 and smarting dilated eyes. This frustration of a 
purpose towards which he had set out under the 
exalted consciousness that he was about to com- 
pensate in some degree for the greatest de- 
merit of his life, made him feel the air of the room 
30 stifling. 

“ Let us go,” he said, in an undertone. 

“We won’t talk of this any longer now,” said 
Nancy, rising. “ We’re your well-wishers, my dear 
— and yours, too, Marner. We shall come and see 
you again. It’s getting late now.” 


SILAS MARNER. 


257 


In this way she covered her husband’s abrupt 
departure, for Godfrey had gone straight to the 
door, unable to say more. 


CHAPTER XX. 

Nancy and Godfrey walked home under the star- 
light in silence. When they entered the oaken 6 
parlor, Godfrey threw himself into his chair, while 
Nancy laid down her bonnet and shawl, and stood 
on the hearth near her husband, unwilling to leave 
him even for a few minutes, and yet fearing to 
utter any word lest it might jar on his feelings. At 10 
last Godfrey turned his head towards her, and their 
eyes met, dwelling in that meeting without any 
movement on either side. That quiet mutual 
gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the 
first moment of rest or refuge from a great weari-i5 
ness or a great danger — not to be interfered with 
by speech or action which would distract the sen- 
sations from the fresh enjoyment of repose. 

But presently he put out his hand, and as Nancy 
placed hers within it, he drew her towards him, and 20 
said : 

That’s ended ! ” 

She bent to kiss him, and then said, as she 
stood by his side, ‘‘Yes, I’m afraid we must give up 
the hope of having her for a daughter. It wouldn’t 25 
be right to want to force her to come to us against 
her will. We can’t alter her bringing up and what’s • 
come of it.” 

“ No,” said Godfrey, with a keen decisiveness of 
tone, in contrast with his usually careless and un- 30 
emphatic speech — “ there’s debts we can’t pay like 
money debts, by paying extra for the years that 


253 


SILAS MARKER. 


have slipped by. While I’ve been putting off and 
putting off, the trees have been growing — it’s too 
late now. Marner was in the right in what he said 
about a man’s turning a blessing away from his 
^door : it falls to somebody else. I wanted to pass- 
for childless once, Nancy — I shall pass for child- 
less now against my wish.” 

Nancy did not speak immediately, but after a 
little while she asked — You won’t make it known 
10 then, about Eppie’s being your daughter? ” 

‘‘ No : where would be the good to anybody? — 
only harm. I must do what I can for her in the 
state of life she chooses. I must see who it is she’s 
thinking of marrying.” 

15 ‘‘ If it won’t do any good to make the thing 

known,” said Nancy, who thought she might now 
allow herself the relief of entertaining a feeling 
which she had tried to silence before, ‘‘ I should be 
very thankful for father and Priscilla never to be 
20 troubled with knowing what was done in the past, 
more than about Dunsey : it can’t be helped, their 
knowing that.” 

I shall put it in my will — I think I shall put it 
in my will. I shouldn’t like to leave anything to 
25 be found out, like this about Dunsey,” said God- 
frey, meditatively. But I can’t see anything but 
difficulties that ’ud come from telling it now. I 
must do what I can to make her happy in her own 
way. I’ve a notion,” he added, after a moment’s 
30 pause, it’s Aaron Winthrop she meant she was 
engaged to. I remember seeing him with her and 
Marner going away from church.” 

Well, he’s very sober and industrious,” said 
Nancy, trying to view the matter as cheerfully as 
35 possible. 


SILAS MARNER. 


259 


Godfrey fell into thoughtfulness again. Pres- 
ently he looked up at Nancy sorrowfully, and said : 

She’s a very prett>% nice girl, isn’t she, Nancy?” 
‘‘Yes, dear; and with just your hair and eyes: 

I wondered it had never struck me before.” & 

“I think she took a dislike to me at the thought 
of my being her father : I could see a change in 
her manner after that.” 

“She couldn’t bear to think of not looking on 
Marner as her father,” said Nancy, not wishing to 10 
confirm her husband’s painful impression. 

“She thinks I did wrong by her mother as well 
as by her. She thinks me worse than I am. But 
she must think it : she can never know all. It’s 
part of my punishment, Nancy, for my daughter to 
dislike me. I should never have got into that 
trouble if I’d been true to you — if I hadn’t been 
a fool. I’d no right to expect anything but evil 
oould come of that marriage — and when I shirked 
doing a father’s part, too.” 20 

Nancy was silent : her spirit of rectitude would 
not let her try to soften the edge of what she felt to 
be a just compunction. He spoke again after a little 
while, but the tone was rather changed : there was 
tenderness mingled with the previous self-reproach. 25 
“ And I gotyou, Nancy, in spite of all; and yet 
I’ve been grumbling and uneasy because I hadn’t 
something else — as if I deserved it.” 

“You’ve never been wanting to me, Godfrey,” 
said Nancy with quiet sincerity. “ My only trouble 30 
would be gone if you resigned yourself to the lot 
that’s been given us.” 

“Well, perhaps, it isn’t too late to mend a bit 
there. Though it is too late to mend some things, 
say what they will.” 


26 o 


SILAS MARNER. 


CHAPTER XXL 

The next morning, when Silas and Eppie were 
seated at their breakfast, he said to her : 

Eppie, there’s a thing I’ve had on my mind to 
do this two year, and now the money’s been 
5 brought back to us, we can do it. I’ve been turn- 
ing it over and over in the night, and I think we’ll 
set out to-morrow, while the fine days last. We’ll 
leave the house and everything for your godmother 
to take care on, and we’ll make a little bundle o’ 
10 things and set out.” 

Where to go, daddy?” said Eppie, in much 
surprise. 

To my old country — to the town where I was 
born — up Lantern Yard. I want to see Mr. 
15 Paston, the minister ; something may ha’ come out 
to make ’em know I was innicent o’ the robbery. 
And Mr. Paston was a man with a deal o’ light — I 
want to speak to him about the drawing o’ the lots. 
And I should like to talk to him about the religion 
20 o’ this country-side, for I partly think he doesn’t 
know on it.” < 

Eppie was very joyful, for there was the prospect 
not only of wonder and delight at seeing a strange 
country, but also of coming back to tell Aaron all 
25 about it. Aaron was so much wiser than she was 
about most things — it would be rather pleasant to 
have this little advantage over him. Mrs. Winthrop, 
though possessed with a dim fear of dangers attend- 
ant on so long a journey, and requiring many 
assurances that it would not take them out of the 
region of carriers’ carts and slow wagons, was 

31. Carrier’s cart. Before the days of railroads, the carrier’s cart 
was as familiar as the stage coach. It was a slow means of conveyance 
and used chiefly for the heavier merchandise. 


SILAS jMARNER. 


261 


nevertheless well pleased that Silas should revisit 
his own country, and find out if he had been cleared 
from that false accusation. 

You’d be easier in your mind for the rest o’ your 
life, Master Marner,” said Dolly — that you would. 5 
And if there’s any light to be got up the yard, as 
you talk on, we’ve i 3 eed of it i’ this world, and 
I’d be glad on it myself, if you could bring it 
back.” 

So on the fourth day from that time, Silas and 10 
Eppie, in their Sunday clothes, with a small bundle 
tied in a blue linen handkerchief, were making 
their way through the streets of a great manufac- 
turing town. Silas, bewildered by the changes 
thirty years had brought over his native place, had 15 
stopped several persons in succession to ask them 
the name of this town, that he might be sure he was 
not under a mistake about it. 

^sk for Lantern Yard, father — tnis gentle- 
man with the tassels on his shoulders a-standing at 20 
the shop door ; he isn’t in a hurry like the rest,” 
said Eppie, in some distress at her father’s bewil- 
derment, and ill at ease, besides, amidst the noise, 
the movement, and the multitude of strange indif- 
ferent faces. 25 

Eh, my child, he won’t know anything about 
it,” said Silas; ^‘gentlefolks didn’t ever go up the 
Yard. But happen somebody can tell me which is 
the way to Prison Street, where the jail is. I know 
the way out o’ that as if I’d seen it yesterday.” 30 

With some difficulty, after many turnings and 
new inquiries, they reached Prison Street ; and the 
grim walls of the jail, the first object that answered 
to any image, in Silas’s memory, cheered him with 
the certitude, which no assurance of the town’s 35 


262 


SILAS MARKER. 


name had hitherto given him, that he was in his 
native place. 

‘‘ Ah,'’ he said, drawing a long breath, there’s 
the jail, Eppie ; that’s just the same ; I aren’t afraid 
5 now. It’s the third turning on the left hand from 
the jail doors — that’s the way we must go.” 

Oh, what a dark, ugly place ! ” said Eppie. 

How it hides the sky ! It’s worse than the 
Workhouse. I’m glad you don’t live in this 
AO town, now, father. Is Lantern Yard like this 
street?” 

My precious child,” said Silas, smiling, it isn’t 
a big street like this. I never was easy i’ this 
street myself, but I was fond o’ Lantern Yard. 
15 The shops here are all altered, I think — I can’t make 
’em out ; but I shall know the turning, because it’s 
the third.” 

Here it is,” he said, in a tone of satisfaction, as 
they came to a narrow alley. And then we must 
20 go to the left again, and then straight for’ard for a 
bit, up Shoe Lane : and then we shall be at the 
entry next to the o’erhanging window, where 
there’s the nick in the road for the water to run. 
Eh, I can see it all.” 

25 father. I’m like as if I was stifled,” said 

Eppie. ‘‘ I couldn’t ha’ thought as any folks lived 
i’ this way so close together. How pretty the Stone- 
pits ’ull look when we get back ! ” 

‘Ht looks comical to me, child, now — and smells 
30 bad. I can’t think as it usened to smell so.” 

Here and there a sallow, begrimed face looked 
out from a gloomy doorway at the strangers, and 
increased Eppie’s uneasiness, so that it was a 
longed-for relief when they issued from the alleys 

30. Usened. Used. 


SILAS MARNER. 263 

into Shoe Lane, where there was a broader strip of 
sky. 

‘‘Dear heart ! ” said Silas, “why, there’s people 
coming out o’ the Yard as if they’d been to chapel 
at this time o’ day — a weekday noon ! ” 5 

Suddenly he started and stood still with a look 
of distressed amazement that alarmed Eppie. 
They were before an opening in front of a large 
factory, from which men and women were stream- 
ing for their mid-day meal. 10 

“ Father,” said Eppie, clasping his arm, “ what’s 
the matter? ” 

But she had to speak again and again before 
Silas could answer her. 

“ It’s gone, child,” he said, at last, in strong 16 
agitation — “Lantern Yard’s gone. It must ha’ 
been here, because here’s the house with the 
Verhanging window — I know that — it’s just the 
same ; but they’ve made this new opening ; and 
see that big factory ! It’s all gone, chapel and all !” 20 
“ Come into that little brush-shop and sit down, 
father — they’ll let you sit down,” said Eppie, always 
on the watch lest one of her father’s strange attacks 
should come on. “ Perhaps the people can tell 
you all about it.” 25 

But neither from the brush-maker, who had come 
to Shoe Lane only ten years ago, when the factory 
was already built, nor from any other source within 
his reach, could Silas learn anything of the old 
Lantern Yard friends, or of Mr. Paston the minister. 30 
“ The old place is all swep’ away,” Silas said to 
Dolly Winthrop on the night of his return — “the 
little grave-yard and everything. The old home’s 
gone; I’ve no home but this now. I shall never 
know whether they got at the truth o* the robbery, 86 


264 


SILAS MARNER. 


nor whether Mr. Paston could ha’ given me any 
light about the drawing o’ the lots. It’s dark to 
me, Mrs. VVinthrop, that is ; I doubt it’ll be dark 
to the last.” 

5 ‘^Well, yes, Master Marner,” said Dolly, who sat 
with a placid listening face, now bordered by gray 
hairs ; I doubt it may. It’s the will o’ Them 
above as a many things should be dark to us ; but 
there’o some things as I’ve never felt i’ the dark 
10 about, and they’re mostly what comes i’ the day’s 
work. You were hard done by that once. Master 
Marner, .and it seem’s as you’ll never know the 
rights o’ .it ; but that doesn’t hinder there being a 
rights. Master Marner, for all it’s dark to you 
15 and me.” 

• No,” said Silas, ‘^no; that doesn’t hinder. 
Since the time the child was sent to me and I’ve 
come fo love her as myself. I’ve had light enough 
to trusten by ; and now she says she’ll never leave 
20 me, I think I shall trusten till I die.” 


CONCLUSION. 

There was one time of the year which was held 
in Raveloe to be especially suitable for a wedding. 
It was when the great lilacs and laburnums in the 
old-fashioned gardens showed their golden and 
25 purple wealth above the lichen-tinted walls, and 
when there were calves still young enough to want 
bucketfuls of fragrant milk. People were not so 
busy then as they must become when the full 
cheese-making and the mowing had set in ; and 
30 besides, it was a time when a light bridal dress 
could be worn with comfort and seen to advantage. 

23. Laburnums A small tree bearing a pendant cluster of yellow 
blossoms. 


SILAS MARKER . 


265 


Happily the sunshine fell more warmly than usual 
on the lilac tufts the morning Eppie was married, 
for her dress was a very light one. She had often 
thought, though with a feeling of renunciation, that 
the perfection of a wedding-dress would be a white s 
cotton, with the tiniest pink sprig at wide 
intervals ; so that when Mrs. Godfrey Cass begged 
to provide one, and asked Eppie to choose what it 
should be, previous meditation had 'enabled her to 
give a decided answer at once. 10 

Seen at a little distance as she walked across the 
churchyard and down the village, she seemed to be 
attired in pure white, and her hair looked like the 
dash of gold on a lily. One hand was oil her hus- 
band’s arm, and with the other she clasped the is 
hand of her father Silas. 

‘‘You won’t be giving me away, father,” she had 
said before they went to church ; “ you’ll only be 
taking Aaron to be a son to you.” 

Dolly Winthrop walked behind with her husband ; 20 
and there ended the little bridal procession. 

There were many eyes to look at it, and Miss 
Priscilla Lammeter was glad that she and her father 
had happened to drive up to the door of the Red 
House just in time to see this pretty sight. They 25 
had come to keep Nancy company to-day, because 
Mr. Cass had had to go away to Lytherly, for 
special reasons. That seemed to be a pity, for 
otherwise he might have gone, as Mr. Cracken thorp 
and Mr. Osgood certainly would, to look on at the^o 
wedding-feast which he had ordered at the Rain- 
bow, naturally feeling a great interest in the weaver 
who had been wronged by one of his own family. 

“ I could ha’ wished Nancy had had the luck to 
to find a child like that and bring her up,” said 35 


266 


SILAS MARNER. 


Priscilla to her father, as they sat in the gig ; I 
should ha’ had something young to think of then, 
besides the lambs and the calves.” 

Yes, my dear, yes,” said Mr. Lammeter ; “ one 
6 feels that as one gets older. Things look dim to 
old folks : they’d need have some young eyes about 
’em, to let ’em know the world’s the same as it used 
to be.” 

Nancy came out now to welcome her father and 
10 sister; and the wedding-group had passed on 
beyond the Red House to the humbler part of the 
village. 

Dolly Winthrop was the first to divine that old 
Mr. Macey, who had been set in his arm-chair out- 
1^ side his own door, would expect some special notice 
as they passed, since he was too old to be at the 
wedding-feast. 

‘‘Mr. Macey’s looking fora word from us,” said 
Dolly ; “ He’ll be hurt if we pass him and say 
^ nothing — and him so racked with rheumatiz.” 

So they turned aside to shake hands with the old 
man. He had looked forward to the occasion, and 
had his premeditated speech. 

“ Well, Master Marner,” he said, in a voice that 
25 quavered a good deal, “ I’ve lived to see my words 
come true. I was the first to say there was no 
harm in you, though your looks might be again’ 
you ; and I was the first to say you’d get your 
money back. And it’s nothing but rightful as you 
30 should. And I’d ha’ said the ‘ Amens,’ and will- 
ing, at the holy matrimony ; but Tookey’s done it 
a good while now, and I hope you’ll have none the 
worse luck.” 

In the open yard before the Rainbow the party 
^of guests were already assembled, though it was 


SILAS MARNER. 


267 


Still nearly an hour before the appointed feast-time. 
But by this means they could not only enjoy the 
blow advent of their pleasure ; they had also ample 
leisure to talk of Silas Marner’s strange history, and 
arrive by due degrees at the conclusion that he had 
brought a blessing on himself by acting like a father 
to a lone, motherless child. Even the farrier did 
not negative this sentiment ; on the contrary, he 
took it up as peculiarly his own, and invited any 
hardy person present to contradict him. But he 
met with no contradiction ; and all differences 
among the company were merged in a general 
agreement with Mr. Snell’s sentiment, that when a 
man had deserved his good luck, it was the part of 
his neighbors to wish him joy. 

As the bridal group approached, a hearty cheer 
was raised in the Rainbow yard ; and Ben Winthrop, 
whose jokes had retained their acceptable flavor, 
found it agreeable to turn in there and receive con- 
gratulations ; not requiring the proposed interval of 
quiet at the Stone-pits before joining the company. 

Eppie had a larger garden than she had ever ex- 
pected there now ; and in other ways there had 
been alterations at the expense of Mr. Cass, the 
landlord, to suit Silas’s larger family. For he and 
Eppie had declared that they would rather stay at 
the Stone-pits than go to any new home. The 
garden was fenced with stones on two sides, but in 
front there was an open fence, through which the 
flowers shone with answering gladness, as the four 
united people came within sight of them. 

O father,” said Eppie, what a pretty home 
ours is ! I think nobody could be happier than we 
ar«.” 


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